Crypto exchange Binance plans to end support for Bitcoin non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from its NFT marketplace.
In a Thursday announcement, Binance said it would cease support for trades and deposits as part of an ongoing effort to streamline product offerings, asking users to withdraw their Bitcoin NFTs before midnight UTC on May 18.
Binance will also cease airdrops, benefits, and other utilities associated with Bitcoin NFTs after April 10.
Bitcoin NFTs, also known as Bitcoin Ordinals, are created by inscribing text or image data into Bitcoin blocks, and mapping the data to a nun-fungible satoshi using Ordinal Theory.
These Bitcoin-based NFTs saw massive adoption just a few months after the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol was created, and even drew in a group of critics when the rise in inscriptions trading activity caused significant congestion on the blockchain, and high levels of transaction fees.
Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Bitcoin Ordinals, has created a new protocol called Runes, with the goal of making creating fungible tokens on Bitcoin more efficient.
“For Runestone NFT users who meet the conditions for the Runestone airdrop, Binance NFT had distributed these NFTs to eligible users’ Binance NFT accounts before 2024-04-04 10:00 (UTC),” said the Binance team.
“Users are advised to withdraw these NFTs by 2024-04-10 10:00 (UTC), to ensure they still have the opportunity to receive any associated tokens, utilities, and benefits after 2024-04-10.”
The number of new Bitcoin NFTs minted daily has declined considerably since last year, according to data from Dune compiled by “@dgtl_assets,” but more than 64 million unique inscriptions have been created to date, which have cumulatively generated $430 million in fees.
