Earlier this year, developers on Bitcoin were inspired by Ethereum’s non-fungible tokens and created their own spin on blockchain collectibles with Bitcoin’s Ordinals. Five months and over 12 million ordinals later, developers on Ethereum are feeling similarly inspired by Ordinals to create another new collectible called Ethscriptions.

Named after the inscription process that is used to create Ordinals, Ethscriptions allow images, files, or text under 96 kilobytes to be stored on-chain using almost any type of Ethereum transaction type. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper than storing on-chain data using smart contracts’ storage.

While there are no major use cases for it yet, this is one of those types of innovations that usually pays off down the road, and if you consider that Bitcoin’s inscriptions were part of the blockchain well before ordinals were invented, you can see that sometimes potential isn’t realized until a later time.

Ethscriptions
Source: Ethscriptions

Noteworthy Happenings

Here’s what is making news in NFTs this week

  • Ethscriptions came out of the gates swinging, both with new tech and also its first 10k collection called Ethereum Punks. The 10,000 collection of “ethscribed” punks quickly sold out, and then wrapped using Emblem Vaults’ wrapper to make them tradable on OpenSea. So far over 260 ETH (US$461,216) has been traded for Ethscriptions, with a majority of that being for the Ethereum Punks.
  • The anonymous wallet that was buying up millions of dollars worth of NFTs has been revealed to be one of DeGods biggest whales, FreeLunchCapital. After spending over $10m across BAYC, Azuki, Pudgy Penguins, and other big-dollar projects, he’s now a whale across the entire ecosystem.
  • CryptoPunk #8611 found a new home this weekend when it was purchased for 55 ETH. It shockingly was then burned and minted on Bitcoin as an Ordinal, when 150 members of the Bitcoin Bandits contributed to the purchase and burn of the grail NFT. This CryptoPunk will never be in an Ethereum trader’s hands again and is now lost in the Ethereum wastelands. RIP lil guy.
  • Last week’s Sotheby’s Grails Part II auction saw 37 generative art NFTs sell for nearly US$11 million, showcasing collectors’ love of the ever-growing art form. In total, Sotheby’s Part I and II auctions sold 44 NFTs for over US$13 million.
  • This may be a huge week for NFTs after Nike’s tease about an incoming in-game sneaker event in Fortnite. Targeted to release today is a Fortnite sneaker hunt, and many speculate that it’s Nike’s .Swoosh shoes that may be the prize at the end of the hunt, titled Airphoria. With Fornite’s over 242 million strong user base, this could end up being another mass onboarding event for NFTs.
  • BRC-20’s OXBT finally launched their REDACTED Discord server, and are teasing an ecosystem built around their token. Project creator BitGod has explained the technical challenges and urged patience as they build in uncharted territory.

Peep the charts

NFT sales collection volume
Mostly familiar faces make up the seven days leaderboard.
  • Bitcoin’s Ordinals are the king of the NFT collection rankings by sales volume again.
  • Sotheby’s auction of Three Arrow Captial’s grails, including the now iconic ‘The Goose’ is easily in the second spot following the massive day of generative art sales.
  • It’s hard to keep Bored Ape Yacht Club down, but their prices sure are falling. Average sales prices earlier this month typically ranged from US$80,000 to US$95,000, but have fallen in the past seven days to US$67,000 to US$80,000. May and June saw Bored Ape’s monthly average sales price fall to lows not seen since July 2021
  • Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, The Captains, and Boring Punks are still helping profile pictures dominate the top 10, but sales are down from last week, ranging from 19% – 31% less than this time last week.
Blockchain NFTs by sales volume 1
Similar to the top collection rankings, blockchains by NFT sales volume had a rough week in the red.
  • Ethereum is in the green, primarily from the inclusion of the big Sotheby’s auction sales
  • Bitcoin’s ordinals are down over 17%, perhaps showing some fatigue in the ecosystem that now boasts over 12 million ordinals
  • Mythos Chain and Polygon are extremely close in weekly volume, but expect this to change once secondary markets open for Nike’s .Swoosh sneakers on Polygon
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