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March 23, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Magic Eden launches marketplace for Bitcoin Ordinals

March 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin NFT

It’s one of the first major NFT marketplaces to join the Bitcoin Ordinals fray.

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden has launched its own “fully audited” marketplace for Bitcoin Ordinals, leveraging the surging interest in “Bitcoin NFTs.”

The newly launched marketplace allows Bitcoin (BTC) NFT traders to buy and sell Bitcoin Ordinal collections, giving users a similar experience it offers for Polygon, Ethereum, and Solana-based NFTs.

Extremely excited to announce that @MagicEden is now on Bitcoin. With this, we are simplifying the journey for collectors and creators to get started on Bitcoin - the granddaddy of all chains. Kudos to @kevcode_art @zhouzhuojie @ChartFuMonkey who championed this effort. https://t.co/0W7i0uBvPT
— Zhuoxun Yin (@ZhuoxunYin) March 21, 2023

“Just as we have expanded into other chains, we now aim to bring our expertise in building marketplaces to the nascent, yet flourishing Ordinals ecosystem,” the firm said in a March 21 statement.

The new Ordinals protocol was introduced in January 2023 by former Bitcoin core contributor Casey Rodarmor. Since then, the popularity of Bitcoin Ordinals has surged.

According to data from Dune analytics, between Feb. 1 and March 1, the total number of Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions surged from 679 to 240,000. As of March 21, a total of 567,087 have been inscribed.

*Graph showing the daily and total Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions. Source: Dune Analytics*

“We paid close attention to the release of Ordinal Theory and the lightning pace of adoption that soon followed,” said Magic Eden, adding it built the new marketplace in less than a month:

“Our marketplace was built within a month, culminating in a hackathon in California with over a dozen devs.”

Currently, the marketplace only supports secondary sales of Bitcoin Ordinals. The marketplace said it is also looking into future tools that would allow creators to more easily mint or inscribe Bitcoin NFTs, such as its Launchpad which it offers for other chains.

In order to enable permissionless swaps, it uses partially signed Bitcoin transactions (PSBT) — a Bitcoin standard that allows multiple parties to sign the same transaction — rather than smart contracts.

*The marketplace launched with over 70 collections. Source: Magic Eden*

Meanwhile, Magic Eden says there will be no royalty support for the marketplace, but said it is “actively looking” into this, adding there is “very little tooling and no secure and trustless enforcement solutions.”

“With no royalty standard today, we have decided to launch on Bitcoin without royalty support for now,” said Magic Eden.

First sale on @MagicEden someone papered a mickey for 1.33 BTC LFG! @DeGodsNFT @frankdegods pic.twitter.com/nNtb6z8fiZ
— buzzcutandbeanie X+ ⓻ (@bornwithbeanie) March 21, 2023

“We believe that this is most in-line with the ethos of the ecosystem, and despite this, we are actively looking into the development of an on-chain, permissionless royalty standard and are committed to working with creators and the greater community,” it added.

Other Bitcoin Ordinals marketplaces have already launched, including ORDX and Generative XYZ which launched in February. Earlier this week, NFT platform Gamma.io unveiled its own Bitcoin Ordinals marketplace, allowing users to create and trade ordinal inscriptions in a manner similar to Ethereum NFT marketplaces.

Cointelegraph contacted Magic Eden for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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March 17, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Jack Dorsey’s TBD launches ‘C=’ to improve Bitcoin Lightning Network

March 4, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Wallet

C= (pronounced C equals) aims to further the reach of the Bitcoin Lightning Network through added liquidity and routing services.

TBD, a division of Block (formerly Square) led by CEO Jack Dorsey, launched a new venture named c= (pronounced c equals) to improve the Bitcoin Lightning Network through tools and services.

The Lightning Network (LN) is a layer 2 payment network built to ease the mainstream adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) by enabling faster, cheaper and more reliable peer-to-peer payments. However, c= aims to further the reach of LN through added liquidity and routing services.

⚡️hello world. meet TBD’s @c_equals: https://t.co/j5ZYJmtS3J #lightning
— TBD (@TBD54566975) March 2, 2023

Since its launch, the LN’s liquidity and capacity have witnessed organic growth via real-world adoption. In addition, services like c= offer incremental upgrades to support the ongoing Bitcoin adoption globally.

*Visual representation of widespread Bitcoin Lightning adoption. Source: c=*

Through liquidity, services and infrastructure, c= caters to wallet users, businesses and lightning node operators for faster and cheaper payments. The official announcement read:

“We want to meet you where your lightning needs are. Are you a business looking to accept Lightning payments? A wallet in need of channels or inbound for your customers? A hardened plebnet veteran looking for your next big source?”

Layer 2 services collectively improving Bitcoin operations make it easier for people to adopt the ecosystem into their lives. If you want to accept Bitcoin as payment for your services, read Cointelegraph’s guide on how to get paid in BTC.

Jack Dorsey’s popular payments venture Cash App recently integrated crypto tax and accounting software TaxBit into its services. The move allows Bitcoin users an easy way to report taxes.

As Cointelegraph reported, Cash App launched its Bitcoin trading services in 2018 and rolled out BTC deposits the following year. The company claims to have over 10 million Bitcoin users.

Binance delves into decentralized Web3 storage with BNB Greenfield

February 1, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Binance

The testnet of the proposed Web3 infrastructure — built by the BNB Chain core team — is supported by community developer teams from Amazon Web Services, NodeReal and Blockdaemon.

BNB Chain, a blockchain platform launched by crypto exchange Binance, revealed interest in building a blockchain-based Web3 infrastructure in its new BNB Greenfield white paper.

The white paper explains it as a decentralized storage infrastructure within BNB Chain, which allows users and decentralized applications (DApps) full ownership of the data. Potential use cases include website hosting, personal cloud and data storage, publishing and more

The testnet of the proposed Web3 infrastructure — built by the BNB Chain core team — is supported by community developer teams from Amazon Web Services, NodeReal and Blockdaemon. BNB Greenfield is being built as a decentralized storage system with smart contract integrations for Web3 applications, which will use BNB (BNB) token (previously known as Binance Coin).

Sharing the motive behind the upcoming initiative, Victor Genin, senior solution architect at BNB Chain, revealed the intent to create a new theme for the ownership and utility of data, adding:

“BNB Greenfield will build utility and financialization opportunities for data that is in storage as well as bring programmability to the ownership of data.”

Users who own BNB tokens and a BNB Chain address can store data on BNB Greenfield, similar to Web2 cloud storage services like DropBox. Other capabilities include deploying websites and storing historical data.

The system will also use nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in conjunction with smart contracts for the management of ownership and permission to read the available data. On the backend, BNB Chain will be used to store the storage metadata, while third-party storage providers will be responsible for storing the data.

Binance’s ongoing product expansion aspiration recently led to a Mastercard partnership to launch a prepaid crypto card in Latin America.

On Jan. 30, the crypto exchange announced the launch of Binance Card in Brazil, issued by Dock, a central bank-regulated payment institution.

Olá, Brasil! #Binance Card has just launched in Brazil - another step towards crypto adoption pic.twitter.com/UJRmpMhpbQ
— Binance (@binance) January 30, 2023

The card allows real-time fiat-crypto conversion of 14 digital assets with perks including up to 8% cash back in crypto on eligible purchases and zero fees on some ATM withdrawals.