With the rise of the inscription wave, why does the multi-chain aggregation platform OKX NFT market stand out?

Author: 0xming

Due to being constrained by fundamental doctrines and the setup of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, early attempts to build NFT projects on the Bitcoin network mostly ended in failure. Fortunately, Ethereum perfectly embraced the NFT narrative, launching a grand NFT Summer wave and further catalyzing the accelerated integration of Web3 with the real economy. However, the first NFT wave ultimately came to a halt with the arrival of the bear market, falling into a long period of silence. As time passed and market conditions changed, the NFT market entered a recovery phase, with Bitcoin NFTs and Ethereum NFTs experiencing a reversal in positioning.

After the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade and Segwit expansion, more data can be stored on-chain. Ordinals were created by Casey Rodarmor, allowing NFTs to be minted, transferred, and destroyed through transactions of the smallest Bitcoin unit, satoshis (SATS), by numbering them and writing in text, images, videos, and other data. The narrative of inscriptions officially opened the curtain on the bull market. Compared to Ethereum NFTs, Bitcoin NFTs are stored directly on-chain, with a fair distribution mechanism, higher decentralization, and security, empowered by the greater value brought by the Bitcoin network. However, the Bitcoin network lacks Ethereum's Turing-complete smart contract functionality, so Bitcoin NFTs do not support complex custom settings and have limited storage space. Nevertheless, the Bitcoin ecosystem has already begun to take shape, moving towards NFT infrastructure. During the peak period, the 24-hour trading volume of BTC NFTs once surpassed that of Ethereum's ETH.

With the emergence of Bitcoin NFTs and the narrative of inscriptions, the landscape of the NFT market has changed dramatically. The OKX NFT market was the first to respond to user needs, launching the OKX Ordinals market and quickly establishing its position in the market. According to Dune data, on January 30, the OKX Ordinals market accounted for 89.3% of the market share, with total trading volume exceeding $1 billion, becoming the largest BRC20 inscription and BTC NFT trading market in the industry.

In addition, the OKX NFT market will integrate standards such as DRC-20 and ARC-20 by the end of February, continuing to lead the construction of Bitcoin inscription ecological infrastructure. Moreover, in addition to Bitcoin inscriptions, the OKX NFT market has also supported Aptos and Solana ecological inscriptions, accelerating its rise in the NFT market.

As the narrative of inscriptions rises, NFT user attention shifts from Ethereum to Bitcoin

The blue-chip projects that once dominated the NFT market, such as BAYC, Azuki, and CryptoPunks, failed to sustain their excessively high values in the long term and ultimately returned to the mean during the bear market washout. The typical NFT narratives they advocated, such as PFP, art, or rights, have become outdated. Meanwhile, the "one strong, many strong" pattern of the NFT market has quietly changed, with some leading NFT platforms sticking to their old ways while new emerging platforms are rising, each seeking change amid the unpredictable market shifts.

In 2023, the narrative of Bitcoin inscriptions ignited the market, shifting NFT user attention from Ethereum to Bitcoin, and market capital began to flow actively. The leading Bitcoin NFT project, Bitcoin Frogs, saw its daily trading volume surpass that of Ethereum NFT leader BAYC multiple times, sparking a grassroots movement in the community to "redefine fairness."

However, the lagging infrastructure of Bitcoin cannot fill the gap in user demand. As a platform with technological accumulation and innovation-driven capabilities, OKX NFT was the first to launch the Ordinals market, responding to user needs promptly and achieving exponential user growth. According to Dune data, as of January 30, its Ordinals market had reached 138,704 users, with a market share of 89.3%, and total trading volume exceeding $1 billion, ranking first in the industry.

The OKX Ordinals market is completely decentralized, with no platform service fees for interactions, and supports a one-stop transfer, trading, and inscription of BRC-20 and BTC NFTs, among other functions. It has also launched powerful inscription tools that allow users to batch inscribe with a single signature. BTC network inscriptions can inscribe 1200 items at once, while EVM network inscriptions can automatically inscribe 50 items at once. Users can choose between text mode or hexadecimal mode to batch inscribe single or multiple texts across BTC and 23 mainstream EVM public chains, automatically sending user transactions without needing to import private keys, making it safer and more convenient.

In addition to batch inscriptions, the OKX Ordinals market also supports users in bulk purchasing and transferring, allowing simultaneous purchases of BRC-20 inscriptions and BTC NFTs, with a maximum of 10 orders per transaction, eliminating cumbersome steps and improving transaction efficiency.

The minting fees for Bitcoin NFTs are related to data size and minting speed. To address the two major issues of "high" and "congested" interactions on the Bitcoin chain, the OKX Ordinals market has optimized UTXO spending order, further reducing user GAS fees, and during user order placements and purchases, it employs encrypted PSBT signatures, disables RBF transactions, and uses server-side broadcasting to prevent users from being maliciously stuck by low GAS fees. In terms of UTXO management, the OKX Ordinals market supports preventing effective UTXO spending and intelligently releasing invalid UTXOs, automatically identifying worthless NFTs and expired BRC-20 and BRC20-S inscriptions, helping users release their occupied assets with one click.

In addition to continuously meeting the growing user demands, the OKX Ordinals market is also empowering industry construction through open-source initiatives and API upgrades. The API functionality now supports faster order placements through APIs, allowing users to enjoy better depth and liquidity with zero fees. The fully open-source OKX ORD Indexer not only supports the parsing of the Ordinals protocol and transaction events, inscription data, and UTXO state queries, but also supports the parsing of the BRC20 protocol and transaction events, balance, ticker queries, and bitmap protocol parsing, thus continuously building the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The explosion of the Bitcoin inscription narrative has driven the prosperity of inscription ecosystems across major public chains. To provide more comprehensive support for the development of industry inscriptions, the OKX NFT market has gradually supported recursive inscriptions, cursed inscriptions, BRC-420 standards, Solana inscriptions, and Aptos inscriptions, and will integrate ARC-20, SRC-20, Runes, and DRC-20 inscription token standards, becoming the first and most advanced one-stop inscription ecological platform in the Web3 industry. It is evident that behind the steady advancement of these diversified initiatives, millions of users can conduct zero-fee transactions within the ever-expanding world of inscription standards, helping OKX NFT ascend to the largest inscription market in the industry. The decline of the old NFT narrative has given rise to new platforms, gradually dismantling the "one strong, many strong" NFT landscape dominated by Opensea, as new forces embark on a diversified development era, where the new battle of inscriptions rewards the brave.

Three core driving forces, OKX NFT market accumulates strength for a breakthrough

The OKX NFT market encompasses a separate NFT section, an Ordinals market, and a Drops section. Its ability to quickly stand out in the inscription battle is largely attributed to its long-term dedication to refining its products. Dappradar data shows that the OKX NFT market's 24-hour trading volume has repeatedly topped the industry, even achieving counter-cyclical growth during the bear market. Through in-depth experiences and community research on the OKX NFT market, it is not difficult to find that solid infrastructure construction, rich and diverse functionalities, and product innovation have become its three core driving forces for rise.

In terms of infrastructure construction, the OKX NFT market adopts a dual approach: on one hand, it simplifies the cumbersome operations of cross-chain transactions for users by integrating EVM networks such as Ethereum, zkSync, Polygon, Arbitrum, as well as heterogeneous chains like Solana, Aptos, Sui, and Starknet; on the other hand, it continuously aggregates orders from multiple platforms such as Tensor, OpenSea, Magic Eden, LooksRare, IMX Official, Element, and Blur, providing users with the best quotes and liquidity. As of now, the OKX NFT market has integrated over 20 public chains and more than 30 NFT platforms, and as its integration scale continues to grow, the number of users is on the rise, especially playing an important role in new chain ecosystems like Aptos and zkSync.

Based on the best depth and smooth cross-chain experience, the OKX NFT market also supports multi-dimensional intelligent user interaction strategies, multi-dimensional security strategies, API standards, and ecological construction, further enhancing the user experience. For example, the launch of the multi-dimensional intelligent user interaction strategy allows users to place multiple orders on the OKX NFT market or Opensea with just one authorization signature, and during purchases, it intelligently selects the contract calling method based on user needs, maximizing the reduction of user operational processes and GAS consumption. The multi-dimensional security strategy can conduct multiple checks when listing NFT projects, automatically identifying fake airdrop tokens and other issues, and blocking them to help users avoid GAS and asset losses.

Additionally, the OKX NFT API now supports pulling collections and products across all chains, as well as pulling orders and trading instructions across all chains, available for free without permission applications, and has already been adopted by Element, Bybit Web3, AIcoin, and TG BOT. Through the construction of the API ecosystem, the OKX NFT market will closely collaborate with more developers and quality project parties.

In terms of diversified functionalities, the OKX NFT market provides a wealth of features in NFT asset search, data reference, trading processes, and experiences, helping users better filter and trade among a vast array of NFT assets. The search function of the OKX NFT secondary market supports filtering by collections, products, and user addresses, as well as certification status and chain dimensions, allowing users to gain a more comprehensive understanding of NFT assets. Furthermore, the OKX NFT market also visualizes data through features like showcasing hot search collections, trading rankings, price & trading volume, trading scatter plots, order depth charts, and position dispersion, enabling users to make quicker and more informed decisions. In terms of trading processes, it fully supports convenient basic functions such as bulk order placements, order price adjustments, collection bidding, bid acceptance, and bulk transfers, and can pre-execute to intercept user transactions to avoid on-chain asset losses.

In terms of innovation, the OKX NFT market also supports batch creation and editing of user-created collections, and has launched AI creation features. Through the batch creation function, whether ordinary users, artists, or project parties, they can upload 10K image works with one click and generate their own NFT collections and independent NFT contracts without needing to understand or learn complex and obscure contracts and technologies. Additionally, users can create art through AI or upload existing artworks, generating art not only through text descriptions and uploaded images but also offering dozens of artistic styles for creators to choose from, greatly enhancing the quality and experience of creation.

In addition to the highlighted NFT section and Ordinals market, the OKX NFT market also features a very prominent Drops section. The Drops section is OKX NFT market's exclusive primary issuance platform, offering a completely decentralized and fair sale. By selecting popular and high-quality NFT assets, it allows users to participate at preferential prices right away. Additionally, it periodically collaborates with quality project parties, such as exclusive whitelist releases with Nobody and TinFun, helping users better seize profit opportunities.

As a multi-chain aggregation platform that integrates creation, collection, and trading functions with zero fees, the OKX NFT market has grown into one of the most comprehensive and advanced NFT markets in the industry by deeply understanding users' real needs and meticulously refining its products across three strategic levels: infrastructure construction, diversified functionalities, and product innovation.

Innovation continues, NFTs open up infinite imagination

Under the influence of the digital wave, the NFT market has also experienced unprecedented prosperity and innovation, gradually becoming the dominant force in global digital art, gaming, and virtual asset trading, showcasing rich appearances across multiple fields. Looking back, the NFT digital artwork "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" by artist Beeple sold for a staggering $69 million at a Christie's online auction, Yuga Labs' metaverse project Otherside triggered a 3-hour GAS WAR, and BTOK purchased the most expensive Bored Ape, BAYC #7537, for 1024 ETH, continuously reshaping user perceptions and pushing NFTs to an epic climax.

However, the NFT narrative ultimately could not be sustained long-term, as all prosperity faded into silence during the crypto winter. Throughout the prolonged mean reversion of NFT values, users have long been mixed with frustration and anticipation. In 2024, with the explosion of the Bitcoin inscription narrative, the NFT market is warming up, and its landscape is undergoing significant changes. The multi-chain aggregation platform OKX NFT market, which was the first to respond to user needs, stands out due to its excellent product experience and comprehensive advanced features, winning widespread support and trust.

Bitcoin NFTs are just getting started, and networks like Aptos and Solana are rapidly iterating. With the continuous upgrading and improvement of infrastructure represented by the OKX NFT market, the future evolution of the market is highly intriguing. While the sustainability of the inscription wave remains uncertain, the innovation of NFTs will go far beyond this. Whether in digital art, gaming, asset copyrights, on-chain identities, or various explorations of integration with real estate and other physical entities, the immutable nature of blockchain ensures the transparency and security of transactions, driving the development and boundaries of the crypto world. As technology continues to evolve, the NFT market will undoubtedly continue to witness more innovations and transformations, becoming an indispensable part of the digital age.

For instance, the NFT market can enhance transaction speed and reduce costs through widespread adoption of Layer 2 solutions, and provide users with richer social experiences by NFT-ifying social media. Overall, with the balanced advancement of technological innovation, industry compliance, and social acceptance, NFTs will continue to play a key role in the crypto industry and are expected to find new development paths in the ever-changing environment, bringing more innovative experiences to crypto assets. As users, simply maintaining exploration and experience will allow them to glimpse the future of NFTs sooner.