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.
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.
About the author
Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
