On April 18, the Binance NFT marketplace will discontinue its support for trades and deposits involving Bitcoin Ordinals, a decision announced just a few months following its introduction to the platform. This move is part of Binance's initiative to streamline its product offerings within the NFT marketplace, as outlined in a blog post released on April 4.

In the blog post, Binance explained its intention to focus efforts on refining the Binance NFT marketplace, prompting the cessation of support for Bitcoin Ordinals trades and deposits effective April 18. Users are urged to withdraw their Bitcoin NFTs from the Binance NFT Marketplace via the Bitcoin network before May 18, 2024, to ensure seamless transitions.

Furthermore, after April 10, 2024, the Binance NFT marketplace will no longer provide airdrops, benefits, or utilities related to Bitcoin NFTs, marking a significant change in the platform's operational scope.

Bitcoin Ordinals, or Bitcoin NFTs, allow for the direct inscription of digital content such as art, text, or video onto the Bitcoin blockchain. The popularity of this feature surged with the introduction of Ordinals in late 2022, a protocol developed by Casey Rodarmor. This protocol enables the direct embedding of unique digital artworks into Bitcoin transactions, akin to Ethereum's nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

Binance specifically addressed users of Runestone NFT, advising them to withdraw their tokens by April 10 to ensure eligibility for associated tokens, utilities, and benefits beyond that date.

This decision has taken many in the community by surprise, as Binance had only added support for Bitcoin NFTs a year earlier, in May 2023, promising expanded opportunities for collectors and enthusiasts.

The influx of NFT transactions has led to network congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain multiple times since its inception. Consequently, fees have increased, and processing times have slowed as more transactions are validated on-chain. According to data from Dune Analytics, the network has accumulated over 64 million inscriptions to date, generating over $423 million in transaction fees.