Franklin Templeton: “Ordinals Spark Bitcoin Innovation”

Franklin Templeton, a leading financial services company managing assets worth around $1.5 trillion, has expressed its belief that Bitcoin is experiencing a period of “renaissance” due to the recent developments and innovations on the platform, such as ordinals and other new features.

The asset manager highlighted, through a tweet on X, the introduction of new fungible token protocols such as BRC-20 and Runes, and layer-2 networks and decentralized finance (DeFi) primitives built on Bitcoin, as key factors propelling innovation within Bitcoin.

The Rise of Bitcoin Ordinals pic.twitter.com/nKLwwlMM4d

— Franklin Templeton Digital Assets (@FTI_DA) April 3, 2024

Furthermore, the asset manager acknowledged the increased activities in the Bitcoin NFT sector and emphasized Bitcoin’s growing significance in the NFT space. According to the company, trading volume in Bitcoin Ordinals has seen a significant increase in the past few months. This rise in volume can be observed in the dominance of Bitcoin Ordinals, which surpassed ETH in trading volume in December 2023.

The asset manager also noted that several Bitcoin Ordinals collections are gaining prominence in the NFT space regarding trading volume and market capitalization. These collections include NodeMonkes, Runestone, Bitcoin Puppets, Ordinal Maxi Biz, and Bitmap.

Even though the asset manager expressed optimism about Ordinals, it also pointed out that these assets may not hold their value and do not have a bank guarantee. Franklin Templeton mentioned that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) does not insure Ordinals. Additionally, the asset manager reminded its investors that all investments carry risks, including the possibility of losing capital. The company noted that digital assets are exposed to risks due to their rapid development and immature technology, which makes them vulnerable.

Franklin Templeton has recently become one of the leading institutional investors in Bitcoin. Last year, the company filed for a BTC ETF, and in January, it successfully launched its Franklin Bitcoin ETF (EZBC) following a series of SEC approvals.