33
Non-fungible tokens on Bitcoin are now a thing and they’re quickly catching fire. A lot of the popular collections are generating considerable trading volumes, comparable to top 15 ETH NFT collections, despite the lack of a comprehensive and easy way to mint, trade, or even store them.
To simplify this post, we will use the word inscriptions as a substitute to Bitcoin NFTs. That said, the most valuable inscriptions right now are those within the first few thousand that were inscribed (minted) on the Bitcoin network.
People have inscribed tens of thousands of NFTs using the Ordinal protocol, and that’s why you will commonly see them called “ordinals.”
Many people seem to believe that the more NFTs are minted (or inscribed, if you will), the value of those within the first few thousand will increase, calling them grails of a sort.
But a lot of these “grails” are already incredibly expensive. For example, Ordinal Punks are selling at a floor price of above 4 BTC (yes, BTC, not ETH). They are within the first 1,000 inscriptions ever made.
Those in the 1000-3000 inscriptions range are also getting very pricy, with numbers reaching above 1 BTC on multiple occasions.
However, there’s a significant technical barrier for non-BTC natives (even for them) when it comes to transacting with these NFTs. There’s no marketplace yet created and most of the deals are done OTC with a trusted 3rd party (means there’s no trustless way for it to happen, YET).
One collection within that range (1000-3000), however, stands out. It’s called TradFiLines and it’s one of the few original collections with some unique twists. And you can trade it on OpenSea, for now. Let me explain.
Before that, I recently created a dedicated account that's primarily going to focus on Ordinals and NFTs on Bitcoin, so if you want more alpha, please consider following me:
https://twitter.com/pa1nnnnnnnnn
What is TradFiLines?
TradFiLines is a collection of randomly generated stock charts, tickers, and exchanges. In essence, they represent charts of existing companies trading on certain exchanges.
So what’s the twist?
Well, there are a couple.
- Each time the NFT is transferred, a new candle appears. The more you transfer an NFT, the more candles. This in itself is a very distinguishing characteristic of a dynamic NFT that could be leveraged in the future. As in - take a look at this particular TradFiLine NFT - it’s been trade 100 times and it’s the only one of this kind. Or vice-versa - “I’m a firm holder and I have the least-traded TradFiLine NFT out there.” The opportunities to market these are endless.
- The second one is that, just as regular stocks, you can only trade these during official working hours of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) - From 9:30 to 16:00 EST on WEEKDAYS, meaning you can’t trade outside of these hours and you can’t trade them on weekends. To my knowledge, there’s no other collection that does that and there’s a definite appeal in it.
In other words, you can’t buy them at the time of this post (it’s Sunday).
How is a Bitcoin NFT Traded on OpenSea?
That’s the deal. The ones that are currently in existence are minted on Ethereum. There’s a total of 500 of them - a very limited supply for an ETH collection but fairly considerable in terms of BTC NFTs within this early range.
That said, the creator has inscribed 500 different TFL (TradFiLines) NFTs onto the Bitcoin blockchain using the Ordinal protocol.
Every NFT that you buy on OPENSEA corresponds to an inscription ID and you can check it here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nLlR3Y5jc222-ny_ZQ6eTLHZx09p6bZdlgp2Y8rvDBY/edit#gid=52362334
At some point soon, the creator of the collection ( https://twitter.com/UlversY ) will “airdrop” the Bitcoin inscriptions to those who hold the ETH NFTs.
So why it’s not done yet? Well, the existing problems with Bitcoin NFTs are largely concentrated in the fact that there’s no comprehensive tooling. In other words - the process of minting, selling, and even buying them is very technical and quite complicated. A lot of it requires setting up and syncing a full Bitcoin node, which in itself is a serious undertaking.
However, with how fast the industry is going, many expect that more comprehensive wallet solutions will be up very soon and the team behind Ordinals is already making massive strides with the Ordinal wallet.
TFL Creator is currently looking for the safest and easiest way to transfer ownership of the BTC NFTs to ETH NFT holders in a way that will guarantee that everyone no matter how non-tech savvy, gets their NFTs. It’s cool.
But does it carry risks?
Yes, of course. He can rug - but what does he gain from it? He put out the ETH collection with absolutely no royalty fees with the intention to make them as accessible as possible.
He is a well-known and respected member of the ETH NFT community with years of reputational buildup in the industry, owner of over 200K cryptokitties and followed by some of the brightest minds.
He is always active in the TFL Discord, discussing ideas and engaging with the holders every single day. Here’s the discord link if you just want to hang out and find out more about the project: https://discord.gg/tradfilines
Why Are TradFiLines Undervalued?
The current floor (excluding the one troll listing which will disappear before the opening bell on Monday) is around 2.7 ETH. Don’t get me wrong - this is still a LOT of money.
However, as I mentioned above, collections above that range (most of TFLs are below 3K, with only a few above it) are selling for more than that. For instance, take a look at the Ordinal Shards collection on OpenSea which carries a similar transfer concept (ETH to BTC) - the current floor is 3.75 ETH but on much worse volume. They are in the range of 8.5k - 15K (which is much higher).
Ordinal Smokes, which is the closest project to TradFiLines, are selling for 0.25 - 0.4 BTC, but they are already on BTC, while TFL’s transfers haven’t yet happened - they are currently ONLY on ETH. The value of them will be further solidified once the airdrop is complete.
Another aspect of the project is the community. Becoming a holder comes with the added perks of receiving access to a holders-only channel and the ideas and overall conversations there are inspiring. Alpha at your fingertips. The broad Discord server that's accessible for everyone is also supper-well moderated and contains a LOT of useful information not on just the project but about the Ordinals space in general. Highly recommend it. Also thanks https://twitter.com/dustdust213 for moderating it <3.
What’s the TLDR?
Bitcoin NFTs are on par with top ETH collections without any of the existing ETH tooling (marketplaces, user interface, wallets, etc) - imagine what happens when the infrastructure is completed.
There are some market inefficiencies (my personal opinion) with some existing collections -> TradFiLines the most obvious example.
It’s one of the grail collections that provides an easy way to obtain an ordinal NFT without having to go through all the hassle of setting up a node and all that (at least for now).
Multiple collections are popping every day (thousands of daily inscriptions), which (in my opinion) makes the earliest ones even more valuable.
TradFiLines is also not a derivative - it’s a unique new original collection with very particular mechanisms that provide plenty of opportunities to market.
Now, this article was inspired by a few threads that I am linking to below:
https://twitter.com/0xIT4I/status/1624451247095922688
https://twitter.com/TeoCollector/status/1623554537075408897
Here are some of the links for the project:
-> Discord: https://discord.gg/tradfilines
-> OpenSea: https://opensea.io/collection/tradfilines
-> Website: https://trad-fi-lines.herokuapp.com/
-> Twitter: https://twitter.com/TradFiLinesNFT
A full disclosure: I am a holder.
