OKX to Establish Bitcoin BRC-20 Industry Standard with Unisat
Image courtesy of 123rf.

OKX to Establish Bitcoin BRC-20 Industry Standard with Unisat

The introduction of BRC-20 and Ordinals was not welcomed by the so-called Bitcoin purists.
Neither the author, Tim Fries, nor this website, The Tokenist, provide financial advice. Please consult our website policy prior to making financial decisions.

OKX and Unisat, the open-source Chrome wallet extension for Bitcoin Ordinals, announced on Friday they entered into a partnership to establish a BRC-20 token standard. BRC-20 and Ordinals have been a popular subject in recent weeks and the reason behind the division in the Bitcoin community.

OKX and UniSat to Establish BRC-20 Token Standard

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX joined forces with UniSat Wallet to create a cross-verification process for BRC-20 transaction indexing on the Bitcoin blockchain. As part of the partnership, UniSat is set to become OKX’s BRC-20 market data supplier.

“We are delighted to announce that @OKX and @unisat_wallet are collaborating to develop a cross-verification process for BRC-20 transaction indexing on the #Bitcoin blockchain. This marks the initial stride towards decentralized indexing, enhancing the overall robustness and reliability of BRC-20.”

– UniSat wallet wrote in the Twitter announcement.

BRC-20 refers to an experimental token standard introduced in March 2023 by an anonymous crypto developer known as “Domo.” Like ERC-20 standards on Ethereum, BRC-20 allows users to issue fungible tokens using Bitcoin’s Ordinals protocol.

Since the standard was rolled out, the demand for Bitcoin Ordinals reached sky-high levels, causing congestion on the world’s biggest blockchain and propelling its network fees to a 2-year high earlier this month. In addition, Binance said on May 9 it would add support for Bitcoin Ordinal inscriptions on its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace in late May.

Join our Telegram group and never miss a breaking digital asset story.

Bitcoin Purists Slam the BRC-20 Launch

A big part of the Bitcoin community welcomed the introduction of the BRC-20 standard, as many wanted to join Ethereum proponents in issuing NFTs on their favorite blockchain. On the other hand, some have loudly criticized this idea.

These include the so-called Bitcoin purists, who believe Ordinal inscriptions enabled by the BRC-20 standard represent a departure from the original intent of Bitcoin, which was primarily meant to be used as a medium of exchange and a decentralized store of value. Moreover, purists also think that Ordinals have added elements of centralization and jeopardized the idea of Bitcoin being a decentralized, value-neutral currency.

As a result of their discontent, some Bitcoin developers have proposed to cancel Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, which have been primarily responsible for the recent network bottleneck and mounting fees. Earlier this week, around 400,000 unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions in the mempool were waiting to be added to a block.

Finance is changing.
Learn how, with Five Minute Finance.
A weekly newsletter that covers the big trends in FinTech and Decentralized Finance.

Do you think the BRC-20 standard was needed for Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below.

Copy these trading strategies and get real-time alerts from the #1 voted stock discord!

X