On Monday, Feb. 27, 2023, the number of Ordinal inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain crossed 200,000 at 1:02 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition to the 200,000 inscriptions, Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible tokens (NFTs), revealed that the team had created a collection of 300 generative ordinal NFTs called Twelvefold.

Bitcoin Clocks Over 200,000 Ordinal Inscriptions to Date; Yuga Labs Enters Bitcoin-Based Digital Collectibles Market

Ordinal inscriptions continue to be minted on the Bitcoin blockchain and on Monday afternoon at 1:02 p.m. (ET), the number of Ordinals surpassed the 200,000 mark. It took approximately 72 days to reach the 200,000 range, as the first Ordinal inscription was minted on Dec. 16, 2022, at block height #767,753. The second Ordinal inscription, #2, was embedded into the chain three days later on Dec. 19 at block height #768,094. It took 45 days to reach the 1,000th inscription, which was minted on Feb. 2, 2023. Since then, the rate of Ordinal inscription growth has increased by 19,900% up until Feb. 27.

At the time of writing, there are approximately 212,793 Ordinal inscriptions on the chain. Essentially, an Ordinal inscription is a non-fungible asset (NFT) produced by inscribing data on the smallest denomination of bitcoin (satoshis). So far, people have inscribed images, videos, text, and software applications to the blockchain. Images are by far the most common, but text inscriptions are also well-liked, and applications are becoming popular as well. Similar to the well-established blue-chip NFT collections on the Ethereum blockchain, Bitcoin-based NFT collections are attempting to become fashionable.

In fact, there is a significant number of collections within the first 6,900 Ordinal inscriptions. Now, Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs, are entering the world of Bitcoin-based digital collectibles with a new compilation of NFTs called Twelvefold. The collection consists of 300 generative creations inscribed by the Yuga Labs team. “The Twelvefold auction will launch later this week. There will be a 24-hour notice with auction details and exact timing,” Yuga Labs explained on Twitter.

In a blog post about the collection, Yuga Labs said, “Twelvefold is a base 12 art system localized around a 12×12 grid, a visual allegory for the cartography of data on the Bitcoin blockchain. The collection includes highly rendered 3D elements, as well as hand-drawn features, which serve as an homage to the Ordinal inscriptions currently done by hand.” In addition to Bitcoin, people have also been minting ordinal inscriptions on the Litecoin (LTC) blockchain. To date, more than 56,000 LTC-based inscriptions have been minted on litoshis.

What are your thoughts on the increasing popularity of Bitcoin-based NFT collections? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.