Magic Eden, a cross-chain nonfungible token marketplace, announced Tuesday that it’s expanding to integrate Bitcoin NFT Ordinal inscriptions into its marketplace, which will allow users to buy and sell the new digital collectibles.

Bitcoin Ordinals are a new type of nonfungible token, or NFT, that can be “inscribed” on the Bitcoin blockchain. They are a type of cryptoasset that can represent a digital collectible such as a document, an image, a video file or a video game item, which can then be inscribed onto the smallest unit of Bitcoin, the satoshi. By owning that satoshi, users can show that they also own that collectible item inscribed onto it, creating a tradable version of the collectible on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Unlike NFTs supported on other chains, such as Ethereum, Ordinals inscribe the storage data for the collectible directly on the chain instead of using a link to the media. That means it cannot go offline or get lost, so it’s always directly connected to the satoshi — “inscribed” to it –and remains with the owner of the NFT.

The marketplace is the largest Solana-based NFT marketplace by market share and last year expanded to support Polygon and Ethereum. The additional support for bitcoin NFTs provides yet more options for the marketplace’s audience to explore even more opportunities.

“Bitcoin Ordinals bring a whole new dimension into the universe of NFTs,” said Jack Lu, chief executive and co-founder of Magic Eden. “On Bitcoin, all media that is uploaded onto the chain cannot be changed or removed. This simplicity is embraced by many creators who want to create true collectibles that are inscribed onto the chain.”

Earlier this week, the number of Ordinal inscriptions passed more than 500,000 since the protocol’s initial launch on January 21. The crypto-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital Ltd. predicted that Ordinals would become an extremely large market, estimating as a base case the market could reach $4.5 billion by 2025. In comparison, the overall NFT market reached nearly $24.7 billion in organic trading during 2022.

At launch, the marketplace is partnering with 13 different collections publishing Bitcoin NFT Ordinals including Taproot Wizards, Inscribed Pepes and Bitcoin Bandits. All collectibles will be displayed the same way any other NFTs do on Magic Eden and include metadata such as Ordinal rarity, age, name and inscription number. The marketplace also said it will continue to update the feature as more collections come online and create more advanced tooling to support Ordinals.

To ease the process of buying, selling and trading Ordinals, Magic Eden partnered with and integrated two noncustodial wallets, Hiro and Xverse. They will provide what the company says will allow users to process transactions and provide an experience similar to the Solana-based Phantom wallet.

Users can buy, sell, trade and transact using Bitcoin NFT Ordinals today by going to the new Ordinals marketplace section now and connecting their wallets.

Image: Magic Eden