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Bitcoin NFTs Push Transaction Fees on the Blockchain to Highest in Over a Year

  • Most NFTs have traditionally been issued on Ethereum
  • Ordinals, or Bitcoin-native NFTs, were launched in January
Cryptocurrency ATMs in Hong Kong
Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg

Fees for transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain are rising as people start minting hundreds of nonfungible tokens on the network for the first time.  

Ordinals, a protocol created recently by Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor, has helped to allow people to mint NFTs or inscriptions, directly on the Bitcoin network since last month. Most NFTs, including the popular Bored Ape and CryptoPunks collections, have primarily been issued on Ethereum, making it the most commercially important blockchain.