Bitcoin Ordinals Are Back—And This Time, They’re Moving Fast
Bitcoin Ordinals are having another moment. After a quiet stretch, trading volume and sales have spiked—hard. Over the past week, volume jumped 103%, hitting nearly 88 BTC, while sales exploded by 891%. That’s not a typo. People are paying attention again, and a handful of artists and collections are leading the charge.
It’s not just about the price of Bitcoin itself. Something’s happening with on-chain art, too. Projects like NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets, and works from creators like Harto and Rutherford Chang are pulling in traders and collectors. Even Ethereum’s usual NFT heavyweights—Moonbirds, Pudgy Penguins—are getting edged out on leaderboards.
Why the Sudden Buzz?
Magic Eden’s data tells part of the story. NodeMonkes, a pixel-art monkey collection, shot up 26% in floor price in just 24 hours, outpacing everything else in the top 10. Other Bitcoin Ordinals aren’t far behind, with gains ranging from 20% to over 70%. Meanwhile, the broader NFT market looks shaky—sales dipped 6% while volume barely inched up.
Maybe it’s the memes. Maybe it’s the novelty of art living directly on Bitcoin’s blockchain. Or maybe traders are just looking for something different. On X, people are asking for recommendations, trying to figure out where to put their BTC. One user even threw out a budget: *”0.5 BTC max for the right stuff.”*
What’s Worth Watching?
A few projects stand out—some already big, others still under the radar.
**NodeMonkes** still dominates. These 10,000 pixel monkeys have been around since the early days of Ordinals, and they’ve got that nostalgic, meme-friendly vibe. At one point, they even briefly overtook Bored Apes in hype. Who made them? No one knows.
Then there’s **Bitcoin Puppets**, a deliberately rough, MS Paint-style collection with 10,001 weird, edgy characters. Like NodeMonkes, the creator’s a mystery.
For something more polished, **Harto’s** *The Golden Ratio* and *FloraForms* mix algorithmic art with classical inspiration (think Klimt’s *The Kiss*). **Rutherford Chang’s** *CENTS* is stranger—10,000 pre-1982 pennies inscribed on-chain, then melted into a copper cube.
And if you want something trippy, **OTO’s** *Polylith* plays with time, rendering visuals backward from Bitcoin’s latest blocks to its genesis.
Is This Just a Flash in the Pan?
Hard to say. Bitcoin Ordinals have flared up before, only to fade. But this time, the numbers are hard to ignore. Whether it’s a short-term rush or the start of something bigger, one thing’s clear: people are paying attention again.
For now, at least.
