The past few weeks in crypto land have been focused on the latest craze: Ordinals.

Registration of a virtual phone number to receive SMS online https://simonline.su/en

What are Ordinals, you might ask? They’re NFT-like Bitcoin digital artifacts that are on the blockchain.

While the project isn’t the first to try to bring NFTs onto the Bitcoin blockchain, it’s definitely gaining the most traction today.

About 122,500 Ordinals have been inscribed, which is jargon for created (or minted), to date, according to Dune Analytics data. The number of total inscriptions is up 40% from about 88,000 on Tuesday. On February 8, the number of Ordinals inscribed peaked over 21,000, and Wednesday was the second highest day with over 17,7000, the data showed.

“It has really escaped, it’s gone nuclear,” Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals, shared with TechCrunch. “There are people building things that I don’t even hear about until they’ve launched. So it’s really about where people want to take this.”

Although things have started off strong, time will tell on whether or not the project will continue to grow and compete with major NFT ecosystems on chains like Ethereum and Solana.

This week in web3

Ordinals creator views his Bitcoin-centric creation as digital artifacts, not just NFTs

TechCrunch sat down with the Ordinals creator to discuss the inspiration for the NFT-like Bitcoin project that is expanding rapidly. “I thought I was building something good and I thought I was meeting an unmet market demand that NFT collectors had expressed a desire for,” Rodarmor said. And by the current market’s response, his creation did in fact meet that demand.

Crypto exchange Binance expects to pay penalties to settle US investigations

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, expects to pay monetary penalties to settle probes into its business in the U.S., a top executive said, in a major about-face after publicly disputing the idea that it was under any investigation and mocking media outlets that reported otherwise. In an apparent admission of breaking laws, Binance chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann told the WSJ that the company’s executives were unfamiliar with laws and rules written surrounding bribery, corruption and money laundering.

Bitcoin NFTs are growing quickly as community sees long-term potential

Following the theme of Ordinals, TechCrunch also spoke to a handful of experts on what Ordinals’ growth means for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Even though Ordinals and Bitcoin NFTs in general are exploding, it’s still in very early stages, especially when compared to behemoths like Ethereum and Solana. “If Bitcoin wants to stay the most decentralized, widespread and prolific cryptocurrency, it needs something like [Bitcoin NFTs] to push it forward,” Alex Adelman, co-founder and CEO of Bitcoin-rewards platform Lolli, said.

SEC’s proposal could affect which crypto companies can manage assets

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a new rule on Wednesday that may back crypto companies further into a corner as regulators continue to crack down on the space. The SEC voted 4-1 for a proposal that would direct registered investment advisers (RIAs) — like wealth managers or hedge funds — to keep customers’ money and securities with qualified custodians like a bank, broker-dealer or trust company when storing digital assets, mainly leaving crypto companies on the outskirts.

Want to buy an NFT with your credit card? Magic Eden lets you do just that

One of the biggest complaints in the crypto world is that using the technology is, you know, kind of difficult. But as the ecosystem evolves, many big players are trying to alleviate the issue through new on-ramps or payment solutions. MoonPay, a web3 infrastructure company, has joined forces with Magic Eden, one of the biggest NFT marketplaces, to help make NFTs more accessible through old-school tricks, the companies announced on Monday.