Bitcoin’s BRC-20 token standard has become the latest trend in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, especially after the rise of the memecoin Pepe (PEPE) in recent months. A total of 8,500 different tokens have been minted using the BRC-20 standard, with the majority of these BRC-20 tokens being memecoins, such as PEPE and Memetic (MEME).
BRC-20 is an experimental token standard on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain that is modeled after Ethereum’s ERC-20. It allows programmers to create and send fungible tokens through the Ordinals protocol.
Although modeled after ERC-20, the BRC-20 token standard differs fundamentally from its Ethereum-based counterpart. BRC-20 tokens do not use smart contracts. The token standard also requires a Bitcoin wallet to mint and trade them.
The BRC-20 token standard was created in early March by an anonymous network analyst named Domo. The goal was to make it possible to issue and transfer fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. The market capitalization of BRC-20 tokens has skyrocketed in the last month and currently stands at $120 million, which is an increase of 600% in the last week.
The BRC-20 token frenzy has also dwarfed the original number of Bitcoin transactions on the blockchain. The number of BRC-20 transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain between April 29 and May 2 reached more than 50%, surpassing regular BTC transactions.
The volume of BRC-20 tokens peaked on May 1 with 366,000 transactions, bringing the total number of transactions on the network to 2.36 million.
Along with the increase in BRC-20 transactions, transaction fees have skyrocketed due to new token activity. Since its inception at the end of April, the network has generated an additional 109.7 BTC in transaction fees for miners.
The memecoin frenzy has been a notable theme on the Ethereum blockchain, but with the rise of the BRC-20 standard, a similar trend is also seen on the Bitcoin blockchain. The memecoin craze has also caused a significant increase in gas fees from the Ethereum network, contributing to network congestion.
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