Are ordinals taking over the market? What's in store for SATS (1000SATS)

Ordinals or ordinals of satoshi on the Bitcoin network are becoming increasingly popular, and some tokens like ORDI and SATS have already been added to the list of major exchanges like Binance. These tokens have become the most sought-after and have led the new movement.

What is 1000SATS

1000SATS is a BRC-20 token created in honour of Bitcoin author Satoshi Nakamoto. BRC-20 is a new standard for fungible (FT) tokens on the Bitcoin network, created using the Ordinals protocol launched in March 2023. However, BRC-20 differs from standards such as ERC-20 or BEP-20: in the Bitcoin network, tokens are created by assigning each satoshi an ordinal number or inscription rather than a smart contract.

As the name implies, the denomination of 1000SATS equals 1000 satoshis or 0.00001 BTC. Satoshi in Bitcoin is the smallest unit and is 0.00000001 BTC.

The prerequisite for creating Ordinals was the launch of the Taproot Bitcoin soft fork, after which it became possible to develop NFTs and tokens directly on the Bitcoin network. The BRC-20 standard for issuing bitcoin tokens appeared in March 2023 — this was the starting point of the new blockchain era when the Ordinals protocol appeared as open source code (later launching a web interface for generating, collecting and exchanging bitcoin tokens). Tokens are created by numbering satoshis and adding signatures to them.

SATS was one of the first and leading BRC-20 tokens and refers to memcoins, which have also become popular among ordinal creators. The project is backed by an anonymous team — all in the spirit of Satoshi.

SATS token

Although by design, the SAT's denomination should be equal to 100 Satoshi, the token rate is not pegged to Bitcoin, and at the time of writing, the article amounted to $0.0007. Such a low price is due to the vast token issue, which amounts to 2.1 trillion SATS.

At the same time, the token's capitalization exceeded $1.5 billion, which indicates the high popularity of SATS, even though it has only existed for 9 months — since March 2023. Regarding capitalization, the SATS token ranks 49th in the CoinMArketCap ranking, surpassing even the first BRC-20 token ORDI, 59th place.

The 1000SATS token can be bought or sold on the UniSat marketplace, providing a wallet for BRC-20 tokens. In December 2023, SATS will be listed on Binance, one of the largest exchanges. That alone says a lot about the prospects

SATS strengths

1000SATS is one of the pioneering Bitcoin tokens and stands a good chance of taking a leading position if the BRC-20 trend continues. The fact that SATS is already in the top 50 cryptocurrencies speaks to the high interest from investors.

In addition, at the moment, ordinals remain the only way to issue digital assets such as NFT and BRC-20 by utilizing the built-in mechanisms of the Bitcoin protocol.

Weaknesses

One of the main weaknesses of 1000SATS is the massive issuance, exceeding 2 trillion, due to which the token price is unlikely to reach at least $1 shortly. However, the upside potential remains high if the trend towards ordinals and BRC-20 continues, even more so if it gains momentum.

Much depends on market trends: BRC-20 tokens like SATS are a completely new, almost uncharted area with an uncertain future. On the one hand, they may carve out a niche for themselves and stand alongside other large projects from different segments, such as:

• Arbitrum,
• Avalanche,
• Polkadot,
• Celestia.

However, on the other hand, they might disappear altogether.

In November, bitcoin developer Luke Dash Jr. said that the "inscriptions" exploited a vulnerability in the Bitcoin blockchain and called the ordinals themselves a "spam attack on the network." He also noted that the vulnerability will be fixed in the following protocol update, so ordinals may no longer exist.

Additionally, in December 2023, ordinals were entered into the U.S. National Vulnerability Database (NVD) and labelled CVE. This means they are categorized as posing a risk to the entire ecosystem.

BRC-20 tokens such as SATS and ORDI have other flaws, such as putting a severe strain on the Bitcoin network, which has low bandwidth and does not scale. The popularity of ordinals has led to commissions on the Bitcoin network rising by 2000% and reaching as high as $34 at one point. This has become another one of the arguments of Bitcoin inscription opponents.

Prospects for SATS

SATS was one of the first projects of its kind and, as a result, quickly found itself at the head of the trend for ordinals. In hindsight, such projects have almost always remained the leaders going forward:

• Bitcoin became the first and remained the leading blockchain;
• Ethereum was the first platform on smart contracts — it continues to lead;
• CryptoPunks' NFT collection became and remains one of the largest non-mutualize tokens on the market.

There are many such examples, but there are also exceptions. For example, the popular CryptoKitties game, although it was the first of its kind and certainly contributed to the development of blockchain games, has now become an almost dead project. CryptoKitties NFTs were once worth dozens or even hundreds of ETH, but currently, the average price for these NFTs is less than 0.01 ETH — approximately $22.

The crypto community is divided on BRC-20 tokens: some consider them useless or even dangerous, while others consider them valuable and significant for the entire Bitcoin ecosystem, as they allow issuing tokens directly on the Bitcoin blockchain without resorting to third-party second-tier solutions like Liquid Network.

Based on all the data, the prospects of 1000SATS tokens are still vague: either they will become trendy, or they may remain on the fringes of cryptocurrency history. Some experts predict the token will rise above $0.0016 in 2024 and $0.002 in 2025. However, things could change if Bitcoin developers release an update and ban BRC-20 tokens from being issued.