The NFT market, once the irresistible pride and joy of the crypto world, hasn’t had the easiest road. The market has been dealt significant blows since its zenith in 2021. Fears of copycat and low-quality works filling collections and high-risk useless NFTs crashing the market caused a wave of whirlwind volatility and subsequent decline in popularity. Problems related to copyright, ownership, and security threats have additionally compounded the market’s troubles. Amidst these challenges, innovative solutions like Bitcoin Ordinals and platforms like Gamma's Signals are emerging, offering potential remedies to some of the NFT market's most pressing problems.

Chau, a columnist at FearlessToken.com, dives deep into how these breakthrough technologies are changing the game. FearlessToken.com is leading the charge to create positive change in the digital creativity space. It deeply and fearlessly navigates NFT royalty controversies and features some of the most brilliant and bold generative art. It demystifies PFP project fads, unravels metaverse advancements, and provides market information free of hype. It is only for people who are helping to define what culture looks like going forward.

This article focuses on how Bitcoin Ordinals and Gamma’s Signals platform is addressing key pain points and challenges in the NFT market. It spotlights their creative answers to on-chain storage, price discovery, and the limitations of legacy NFTs. It will provide a balanced perspective on the Ordinals vs. NFTs debate and encourage readers to explore the Signals platform, while acknowledging Arch Network's sponsorship and its role in enhancing Bitcoin's UX.

The NFT Market's Pain Points

NFT market’s meteoric ascent and eventual crash exposed many important challenges that must be faced. Taken together with the age of the technology, these challenges have resulted in a re-assessment of the technology, and an exploration of more sustainable, predictable solutions.

It’s very easy to blame the NFT market itself for being low-quality or vapid. They highlight the lack of originality in many of the collections. The ease with which NFTs can be created has led to a flood of projects, many of which offer little artistic or intrinsic value. This oversupply has created a scenario where truly innovative and high-quality projects have had an uphill battle to rise above the fray. This effect may help to explain why even the best collections by value have lost the most value. Most NFTs are currently priced lowly and the majority is deemed valueless. Beyond the environmental concerns, their rapid devaluation points to the speculative, boom-bust nature of this market. It highlights the dangers of investing in NFTs with reckless disregard.

Of course, the NFT market’s volatility has been the other big worry. After reaching all-time highs in monthly trading volume during 2021, the market has since seen a steep dropoff through 2022. As architect of the crash, it justified further discussion about the speculative nature of the market and its continued vulnerability to broader economic trends. Moreover, copyright and ownership issues have dogged the NFT space. So it’s no surprise that artists and creators are passionately debating the legitimacy of NFTs and ownership. Others claim their art has been tokenized and sold without their consent. While it has been disastrous for creators, it spurred the day’s important discussions around intellectual property rights and the stronger legal framework that is needed to protect creators. This is because a key concern that has prevented most users from using NFTs are security risks. In fact, tales of hacked accounts and stolen NFTs have grown so rampant that the trust in the market is almost entirely gone.

Bitcoin Ordinals: A New Approach to NFTs

Bitcoin Ordinals also mark a new way of creating and maintaining NFTs which take advantage of the unique properties of the Bitcoin blockchain. Ordinals are awesome! They write directly on individual satoshis, the smallest units of Bitcoin. This distinguishes them from existing NFTs which usually rely on off-chain storage and other blockchains. This on-chain storage provides a number of benefits, both intrinsically and from the connection, including improved security, immutability and decentralization.

What are Bitcoin Ordinals?

Bitcoin Ordinals are able to do this by inscribing data—like images, videos and other media—directly onto individual satoshis. Thanks to the SegWit and Taproot updates, this was possible. They loosened the data requirements for deals, which opened the door to more random data being thrown in. Ordinals basically create inscriptions, which etch a piece of data directly onto satoshis. This process ensures that the related digital asset is forever and unchangeably embedded on the Bitcoin blockchain.

How do Ordinals differ from traditional NFTs?

Here's a breakdown of the key differences between Ordinal NFTs and traditional NFTs:

  • Blockchain: Bitcoin Ordinals are created on the Bitcoin blockchain, while traditional NFTs are typically created on blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, or others.
  • Data storage: Ordinal NFTs have their artwork fully embedded into the blockchain itself, eliminating the need for a separate file of metadata. Traditional NFTs, on the other hand, store metadata on a separate file, often off-chain.
  • Uniqueness: Ordinal NFTs use the ordinal theory to assign a unique number to each individual Bitcoin satoshi, making each one a unique digital artifact. Traditional NFTs use a token standard (e.g., ERC-721) to create unique tokens.
  • Fungibility: Ordinal theory does not violate the nature of Bitcoin fungibility, as each satoshi is still interchangeable with others. However, the unique numbering system creates a way to distinguish between individual satoshis. Traditional NFTs are non-fungible by design.
  • Architecture: Ordinal NFTs have a fundamentally different architecture than traditional Bitcoin NFTs, which often rely on layer-2 networks like Counterparty or Stacks.

Gamma's Signals: Enhancing Price Discovery and Community Engagement

Gamma’s Signals platform addresses the complexities of price discovery prevalent in NFT marketplace. Perhaps most importantly, it creates a more interactive and community-focused experience for users. Signals provides a direct line for users to signal their interest in specific Ordinals, turning their judgement into a marketplace. This effort promotes a more open and competitive marketplace.

How Signals Improves Price Discovery

Signals lets users indicate their intention to purchase or sell certain Ordinals by posting “signals” on the service. These signals act as fascinating early indicators of the possible demand for an Ordinal, informing sellers and buyers alike in the determination of a more accurate market price. The platform incorporates various tools and features to help users assess the value of Ordinals, such as historical sales data, rarity scores, and community sentiment analysis.

Fostering Community Engagement

Beyond price discovery, Signals wants to encourage the competitive spirit to build a closer-knit community among Ordinal enthusiasts. The Ordinals platform offers a unique environment for users to interact, exchange ideas, and explore the world of Ordinals in-depth with their peers. Putting the power in the hands of the community in this way will result in a more dynamic and exciting NFT landscape.

Getting Started with Signals

To join the Signals platform, interested users can use the invite code FEARLESSTOKEN to unlock access. Once registered, users will be able to begin exploring Ordinals, making signals, and engaging with other community members. The platform is notable for its user-friendly design. It particularly opens the door for non-NFT traders and new users to easily dive in.

Arch Network: Powering Bitcoin's UX

Arch Network is at the center of improving Bitcoin’s UX and increasing its power and usefulness. As Bitcoin-native user growth accelerates, Arch provides a seamless execution layer for Bitcoin. This brings Bitcoin into direct compatibility with more complex DeFi applications, without the need to wrap/bridge to separate chains. Arch Network is a sponsor of FearlessToken.com.

Native Bitcoin Execution Layer

Arch Network shared that they provide a native Bitcoin execution layer. This enables Bitcoin to natively participate directly in the most sophisticated financial applications, without wrapping or bridging to other chains. This keeps users from having to trust unknown third-party custodians, or making the jump of faith to complex cross-chain protocols.

Programmability and Decentralized Exchange (DEX)

Arch’s SVM-modified architecture gives global Rust developers the tools to create more faster Bitcoin dApps. This innovation reduces the friction of building complex applications on the Bitcoin network. Arch Network runs an Ethereum based DEX (Decentralized Exchange) called Saturn. This enables users to conduct trustless swaps directly on Bitcoin’s base layer, without the need for bridges, custodians, or Layer 2s.

Bitcoin-native DeFi and Improved Liquidity and Yield

Arch Network is launching the growth of a Bitcoin-native DeFi ecosystem. It enables these exciting new use cases to emerge like lending, DEXs, structured yield, etc that could unlock this $400 billion on-chain Bitcoin economy. With Arch Network’s infrastructure, ecosystem participants are delivering unprecedented levels of innovation to the Bitcoin network. Together with partners like SaturnDEX and Wasabi, they’re creating new pathways for liquidity and yield.

Bitcoin Ordinals and Gamma's Signals represent promising solutions to some of the NFT market's most pressing problems. Because of this, Ordinals can use the security and immutability of the Bitcoin blockchain. This creates a more robust and distributed approach to the development, creation, and subsequent management of NFTs. Proper signals, in turn, allows for better price discovery and more community engagement, developing a more transparent and efficient market. Thanks to the backing of innovative platforms such as Arch Network, Bitcoin-based NFTs stand poised to see a radiant future.