In the past year, Bitcoin Ordinals have surged in popularity within the digital collectible realm, catching the attention of financial powerhouse Franklin Templeton. The digital assets arm of the global investment giant highlighted the emergence of Ordinal inscriptions in a recent prospectus.
“In the last year, we’ve witnessed a resurgence of activity in Bitcoin innovation and development,” wrote Franklin Templeton Digital Assets. “This positive momentum in innovation is primarily propelled by Bitcoin NFTs, known as Ordinals, new fungible token launches like BRC-20 and Runes, Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions, and other Bitcoin DeFi primitives.”
The firm also outlined the notable increase in activity surrounding Bitcoin NFTs following Casey Rodarmor’s introduction of the Ordinal protocol last year. Rodarmor’s development of the “ordinal theory” concept in 2022 assigned a specific number to each Satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin on the network.
“Our digital assets research team consistently monitors the entire digital asset ecosystem,” explained a spokesperson from Franklin Templeton to Decrypt. “This specific piece was prompted by the recent spike in trading volume and market capitalization of Ordinals compared to NFTs on other networks.”
Franklin Templeton Digital Assets detailed the surge of Ordinal collections in the NFT market in terms of volume and market capitalization. They highlighted NodeMonkes, Runestone, Bitcoin Puppets, Ordinal Maxi Biz, and Bitmap—terms that are likely unprecedented in one of their prospectuses.
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“Bitcoin Ordinals have experienced a surge in trading volume over the past few months,” stated Franklin Templeton Digital Assets. “This trend is evident in the increased dominance, starting in December 2023, when it surpassed ETH in trading volume.”
The digital assets team at Franklin Templeton has been actively advocating for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology on social media. In January, they were described as going “full degen” after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first round of Bitcoin ETFs, including the Franklin Bitcoin ETF (EZBC).
“Franklin Templeton has been forward-thinking in the realm of digital assets, with their venture arm investing in Ordinals infrastructure startups behind the scenes,” remarked Runestone project contributor and pseudonymous NFT historian Leonidas to Decrypt on Twitter. “It’s not surprising that Runestone has caught the attention of their digital asset team.”
“Runestone emerged just three weeks ago and today became the third-largest NFT collection by market cap across all blockchains,” he added.
“Ordinals, Ordinals, & Ordinals,” tweeted one account in response.
NFT archaeologist Adam McBride responded with the “Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him” meme derived from the capture of Saddam Hussein by the United States.
Last week, Magic Eden co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Z Yin commented on the upcoming Rune protocol—a new fungible token standard launched by Casey Rodarmor during the Bitcoin halving later this month—stating it will “supercharge the Bitcoin ecosystem.”
“We believe Runes will further enhance the Bitcoin ecosystem, opening up new opportunities for builders and asset types previously only available on other layer-1 chains,” Yin told Decrypt. “It’s a logical step for us to strengthen our commitment to this ecosystem by incorporating Runes into our existing Ordinals marketplace, which has already surpassed $1 billion in volume in 2024 alone.”