Wallet providers remain divided on BRC-20 integration despite popularity

The BRC-20 token standard was invented last March.
Zhiyuan Sun
Posted by Zhiyuan Sun January 25, 2024 3 Mins Read
The BRC-20 token standard was invented last March.

One year ago, Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor pioneered the Bitcoin Inscriptions process that enables users to encode metadata on Satoshis, or one hundred millionth (1/100,000,000) of a single Bitcoin. Expanding the idea in conjunction with Bitcoin Ordinals, which allows the minting of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, fellow developer Domo created the BRC-20 token standard in March 2023. 

The standard became a hallmark in a nearly 15 year old blockchain as it enables the minting of assets such as nonfungible tokens directly on Bitcoin, mirroring the utility of ERC-20 Ethereum tokens. Since then, the total market cap of BRC-20 tokens has surpassed $1.5 billion, with a trading volume of $337 million in the past 24 hours at the time of publication.

The success of BRC-20 tokens came largely as a surprise, as Domo himself stated that the standard was "just my fun experimental standard design." Some traditional wallet providers are skeptical of the innovation, despite the widespread listing of BRC-20 assets on centralized exchanges.

In a statement to Cointelegraph, a spokesperson for Trezor said that the firm "does not plan to incorporate BRC-20 tokens at this stage." Similarly, MetaMask assets product manager Albert Feng told Cointelegraph: "We are certainly open to supporting BRC 20s in the future but at the moment the majority of our focus is on the EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine] experience."

On the other hand, Alvin Kan, COO of Bitget Wallet (formerly BitKeep), said that the company plans to introduce Bitcoin Ordinals market at a later stage alongside a decentralized exchange that powers BRC-20 token swaps within the self-custody wallet itself. "Users can utilize Bitget Wallet to perform a variety of inscriptions-based functions, including the creation of omnichain inscriptions, viewing inscription market trends, and even participating in a soon-to-be-added BRC-20 token launchpad," Kan explained.

"Despite skepticism about their value due to limitations like Bitcoin's block size and transaction throughput, BRC-20 assets offer significant innovations, such as providing a new development model for the Bitcoin ecosystem via a new asset issuance method, which directly addresses concerns related to performance scaling and DeFi application."

Similarly, OKX incorporated BRC-20 assets into its namesake wallet shortly after its invention. Currently, users can buy, sell, list, and transact BRC-20 tokens directly within the OKX Wallet app. The exchange itself also has a BRC-20 marketplace. 

"The current market still lacks comprehensive infrastructural support on the part of wallets, which is a necessity gap," said Kan. Currently, one of the only native BRC-20 wallets with full token support is the UniSat Wallet, whose parent entity also happens to be embroiled in a dispute with BRC-20's creator itself over a proposed hard fork. 

When asked about the outlook for the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2024, Kan said the main catalysts are Bitcoin smart contracts through new protocol standards and layer-2 solution Lightning Network. He also pointed out that despite being a nearly 15-year blockchain, Bitcoin still holds a key competitive edge over newer blockchains.

"In terms of asset security and stability, for instance, the Bitcoin network arguably holds the upper hand," the COO stated. "However, the network falls behind on the metric of technological innovation within the realms of DeFi and GameFi when compared with other blockchains such as Solana and Ethereum."

Cointelegraph reached out to Trust Wallet and Ledger for comments but did not receive any response by press time. 

Related: BRC-20 growth an ‘important narrative’ for Bitcoin in 2023 — Binance Research

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