Cryptocurrencies To Watch: Week of May 15

"Move Over, Bitcoin" — A New Dawn for Litecoin and Dogecoin

Riding on the wave of the Ordinals protocol, Litecoin and Dogecoin have experienced a dramatic upswing in transaction volumes, stirring up quite a buzz in the crypto ecosystem. The Ordinals protocol, an innovative brainchild of developer Casey Rodarmor, facilitates the engraving of text and images on blockchain networks. Initially conceived for Bitcoin, it's now found its way to Litecoin and Dogecoin, stimulating a consistent increase in transaction volumes on these networks over several weeks.

Smashing Records: The Impact of the Ordinals Protocol

In a milestone event on May 18, Dogecoin set a new transaction record, processing 1.2 million transactions within a span of 24 hours, according to BitInfoCharts. Earlier on May 10, Litecoin also broke its daily transaction volume record with a staggering 584,000 transactions.

The arrival of the Ordinals protocol on Litecoin was an outcome of an open challenge posed by an anonymous Twitter user, Indigo Nakamoto. Nakamoto offered a reward of 5 LTC, equivalent to roughly $500 then, to anyone capable of transferring the Ordinals protocol onto the Litecoin network.

Anthony Guerrera, a software engineer, rose to the occasion and successfully integrated the Ordinals protocol with Litecoin on February 19. Soon, Dogecoin followed suit with enthusiasts copying the Ordinals protocol to create equivalent functionality, naming their new protocol "Doginals".

The Rise of Memecoins: LRC-20 and DRC-20 Token Standards

The catalyst propelling Litecoin and Dogecoin's network activity to unprecedented levels was the subsequent launch of their respective token standards—LRC-20 and DRC-20—in early May. These standards enabled users to devise and issue new memecoins on both networks.

This massive surge in Litecoin and Dogecoin activities coincided with a similar spike in Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin network, which set a record of 400,000 daily inscriptions on May 10.

The Ordinals Effect on Bitcoin

The sharp increase in Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions can be directly linked to the launch of the BRC-20 token standard. As per data from the Ordinals scanner brc-20.io, over 24,000 new tokens have been minted on the Bitcoin blockchain thanks to this standard.