Bitcoin is sleeping: volatility hasn't been this low since October 2023

Market analysis

The big news this week is that Bitcoin is not moving. Looking at the volatility graph, you can see how the price of the cryptocurrency is practically unchanged at the moment. Over the past few days, BTC has shown a sideways movement, creating a trading range.

2024 will be a very interesting year. In addition to the approval of spot ETFs in the United States, there will also be the expected Bitcoin halving in a few months. The halving will reduce rewards for cryptocurrency miners. About 72 days left.

The halving is very likely to lead to a sharp increase in price, perhaps even to new all-time highs. But what will happen in the weeks leading up to this event? A retracement is possible before the restart.

Ordinals can rekindle hope

Ordinals monthly sales fell 61% to $335 million in January, compared to $868 million in December 2023, which was the highest sales month in Ordinals history. This decline could be attributed to the oversaturation of the market and the launch of interesting collections on other blockchains such as Solana.

Monthly NFT sales on Ethereum fell 2.2% to $355 million in January, while NFT sales on Avalanche increased 89% to $46.7 million, up from $24.7 million December. The Dokyo NFT collection on Avalanche accounted for the majority of sales volumes, generating approximately $31.4 million in January, accounting for 67% of the blockchain's monthly sales.

However, despite the decline in sales, Ordinals' overall number of subscriptions continues to grow. According to Dune data, over 59 million Ordinals have been registered on the Bitcoin network to date.

The upcoming halving could reignite interest in Ordinals. According to Anndy Lian, intergovernmental blockchain expert and author of the book “NFT: From Zero to Hero,” the reduction in supply of Bitcoin could make each satoshi more valuable and scarce, thus increasing interest in Ordinals as unique and collectible assets . Additionally, halving could increase the cost of network fees, incentivizing miners to process Ordinals transactions and making the network more secure.

The 11th edition of the “State of Crypto” report, published by 21Shares, highlights how Ordinals represent a new potential use case for Bitcoin and innovations such as Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens are expected to drive greater demand for Bitcoin , expanding use cases across the network.

Ultimately, despite the decline in Ordinals sales in January, the upcoming halving could reignite interest in Bitcoin-native NFTs, making Ordinals more valuable and increasing demand for these unique and collectible assets.