Magic Eden pauses transfers of BRC-20 NFTs; Ordinals glitch found
Magic Eden, one of the leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces, has temporarily suspended trading of BRC-20 tokens. The decision, publicized on their official social media account, is a precautionary measure designed “to best protect users until full Ordinals consensus across all BRC-20” is achieved.
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Caution: BRC20 double-spend risk
A glitch in the Ordinals protocol has increased the risk of double spending, as reported by @SanjFomojis and @trac_btc on Twitter (X).
NFT platforms are operating on varying Ordinals versions, leading to discrepancies in inscription numbers. This means that, until a unanimous consensus is achieved on which version to use, it is unsafe to trade Ordinals NFTs.
According to BennyTheDev on GitHub, the risk of double-spend transactions is real:
“There is a double-spend kind of situation now. Haven’t tested that yet but the way it works, it should be exploitable.
I didn’t see none of the marketplaces/influencers warning anyone in the last 24 hrs publicly about that. At least not in the capacity that is required. There is also not “just” BRC-20 that is affected. Let’s not forget that.”
Magic Eden and UniSat Wallet warn users
Magic Eden and UniSat Wallet were the first platforms to react after the Bitcoin NFT community issued the warning on social media.
To safeguard users, Magic Eden suspended trading of BRC-20 NTFs indefinitely, citing: “The safety and confidence of our users are priorities. We’re closely monitoring the situation”.
On a slope
The announcement comes against a recent decline in the BRC-20 sector. Recent data point to a stark reality: daily transactions within this domain now represent a mere 3% of the overall transactions occurring on the Bitcoin blockchain.
However, the introduction of $SATS on Magic Eden was an immense success. It seems there the Ordinals community now has a larger appetite for trading rare Satoshis, the smallest denomination of Bitcoin, instead of art and profile picture (PFP) NFTs. This trend is expected to resume once NFT platforms can come to a consensus.
