BRC-20 tokens piqued the interest of many in the cryptocurrency community this week, and along with that came a large increase in Bitcoin transactions on the network. In legislative news, Texas is considering protecting individuals’ rights to own and use alternative currencies like cryptocurrencies. Enjoy this week’s stories!
Bitcoin BRC-20 Tokens Explode in Popularity and Market Cap
Tokens that operate on the Bitcoin network, or BRC-20 tokens, have recently become popular in the crypto community as new Bitcoin NFT projects and memecoins are created. For some background, NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club or CryptoPunks traditionally run on the Ethereum network or Polygon due to their token functionality, which Bitcoin previously didn’t have. Recently, it was discovered that individual Satoshis (one millionth of a Bitcoin) could be inscribed with information that distinguished it from other tokens in a collection. This led to the rise of Bitcoin Ordinals, the first NFT collection to run on the Bitcoin network along with the token ORDI. After the token was listed on major exchanges earlier last week, the market cap of all BRC-20 tokens rapidly closed in on $1 billion. However, the popularity of the new tokens wasn’t without problems, as seen in the next story.
Bitcoin Transaction Fees Increase as BRC-20 Tokens Become Popular
Transaction fees on the Bitcoin network greatly increased last week as a result of the surge in BRC-20 token transactions, at one point reaching an average fee of $30. The last time an increase comparable to this happened was the bull run in fall 2021, when Bitcoin reached its all-time-high of $69,000. So what exactly is the reason for the rapid increase?
Transaction fees usually increase with demand, and with the rise of BRC-20 tokens filling the blockchain with new transactions, there’s a lot of demand for transactions to be confirmed. Therefore, for transactions to be confirmed in a timely manner, bitcoin miners require higher fees to prioritize transactions over others. Additionally, Bitcoin transactions may take longer to reach wallets, which we covered in last week’s blog. The average transaction fee has slowly decreased over the last few days and hopefully will continue to stabilize over the next few weeks.
Texas House of Representatives Votes to Add Crypto to State’s Bill of Rights
Members of Texas’ House of Representatives voted last Wednesday to pass Bill HJR 146, which amends the state’s Bill of Rights to include the individual’s right to “own, hold, and use a mutually agreed upon medium of exchange, including cash, coin, bullion, digital currency, or privately issued scrip”. This essentially protects the people’s right to own and use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, as long as it is mutually agreed upon by other parties. As the United States moves closer to planning a Central Bank Digital Currency, some states may take steps to give their citizens more freedom in which currency they use for everyday purchases. The bill will come around for a second vote in the House later this year, and if passed will continue to the Senate and a vote from the public.
