On June 21, self-custody wallet provider BitKeep announced support for BRC-20 tokens issued on the Bitcoin network. With the feature, users can view, rank and transfer BRC-20 tokens and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Developers also stated BRC-20 in-wallet swaps are coming “in [the] future."
Last month, cryptocurrency exchange OKX also announced support for BRC-20 assets via the OKX Wallet app. Many centralized and decentralized exchanges have also rolled out BRC-20 support.
Although bullish on its outlook, Trust Wallet currently does not support BRC-20 tokens. They also cannot currently be stored on MetaMask.
Best wallet for your #BRC20 assets!
— BitKeep Wallet (@BitKeepOS) June 21, 2023
️ Great news: BitKeep now supports #BTC #Taproot addresses! Easily manage your #Ordinals BRC20 Token/NFT assets in BitKeep wallet, and complete transactions with a simple click
In future, we will also support the BRC20 #Swap function! pic.twitter.com/W48wsNH5kh
Despite adoption, however, the current market cap of BRC-20 tokens is $154.5 million, representing a nearly 85% decline from its all-time high in May during the peak of the memecoin craze. Although originally aided by investor interest in minting BRC-20 NFTs, the vast majority of BRC-20 tokens’ market cap currently consists of memecoins such as WZRD, PIZA and PEPE.
As told by BitKeep, BRC-20 is a new token standard that utilizes Ordinals and Inscriptions to create new assets on Bitcoin . Ordinals enable the creation of fungible tokens on top of Bitcoin. Meanwhile, Inscriptions allow users to create unique digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. Together, they form the BRC-20 token standard that allows users to deploy, mint and transfer Bitcoin assets.
Unlike the ERC-20 token standard, BRC-20 tokens cannot perform complex functions and are limited to the three aforementioned features. The protocol was created by Twitter user Domo on March 8, 2023. Since then, 34,652 BRC-20 token types have been deployed. In comparison, there could be as many as 400 million ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. Domo has personally stated that the BRC-20 standard is “worthless” and that users should “not waste money mass minting” this “fun experiment."
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