Improving Bitcoin NFT marketplace infrastructure sets the stage for ecosystem growth

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin NFT inscription activity has remained strong with consistency in the daily number of NFTs inscribed on Bitcoin. At the same time, the infrastructure to foster Bitcoin trading is finally coming together with the development of wallets and marketplaces supporting Ordinals.

NFT marketplaces, Gamma and Magic Eden, added support for Bitcoin NFTs this week. While the initial response of traders has been subdued, the activity is expected to pick up soon.

Bitcoin NFTs, also-known-as Ordinals, began with much fanfare in late January as they enhanced the utility and revenue of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Dune dashboard from data analyst dgtl_assets shows that the Ordinals inscription activity remains robust, with nearly 580,000 NFTs inscribed in less than three months.

While the daily inscription activity is vigorous, the trading volume of Bitcoin NFTs is still muted, which can be primarily attributed to the absence of Bitcoin wallets and supporting marketplaces.

Ordinals require a specially designed Bitcoin wallet that recognizes content files on discernable satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, and facilitates its transfer. Hiro and Xverse are the leading wallet providers in the space.

Mark Hendrickson, the product lead at Hiro, told Cointelegraph that the “active users for the wallet are up significantly in general this year, around 350%.” The activity picked up significantly since February, thanks to the Ordinals hype.

On the other hand, Xverse added Bitcoin NFT support on February 15.

So far, the Xverse Chrome browser extension has been downloaded on over 10,000 browsers, with Hiro’s download numbers surpassing 90,000. The Hiro wallet enjoys an advantage here as it was initially designed for the Stacks blockchain, a Bitcoin