Inscriptions & Rare Sats Flow Into Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Wallet

Bitwise, an asset management company, publicly disclosed the Bitcoin address for its spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Jan 24, marking the inaugural move among the 10 spot BTC ETF issuers. Just a few hours after the disclosure, the Bitcoin wallet address has already garnered various tips and donations, including unique Bitcoin ordinals and rare satoshis.

The wallet address presently contains donations totaling $6,083, encompassing more than 16,000 contributions. Among these contributions are two RSIC airdrops, one Bitcoin Punk, one Bitcoin Burials, one Quadkey, and others. Additionally, the account houses numerous BRC-20 contributions; nevertheless, there are no valid or active BRC-20 balances within the account.

However, Ordinals generate nonfungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain by embedding data, including images and videos, onto individual satoshis. A satoshi represents the smallest unit of Bitcoin, with one Bitcoin consisting of 100,000,000 satoshis. Ordinals emerged just last year, catching the crypto community by surprise.

The debate over Ordinals and inscriptions has divided opinions into two camps. Supporters argue that Ordinals enhance the fungibility and versatility of the Bitcoin network, whereas opponents contend that Ordinal inscriptions frequently occupy additional block space, leading to network congestion.

Bitwise ETF Holdings Disclosed: Concerns Rise

While most of the cryptocurrency community praised Bitwise for disclosing its public addresses for its ETF holdings, some individuals also highlighted a single 12,000 BTC transfer. This raised concerns that the asset manager may not have conducted any test transactions to validate the address.

Very cool. However, it would be nice to see at least one transaction spending FROM the address. Honestly kind of shocked they didn't test that before throwing ~12k BTC in there 😬 https://t.co/RpNqyWBs1T https://t.co/DtSC09D9rs pic.twitter.com/rKDSgTsWaf
— Alexander Leishman 🇺🇸 (@Leishman) January 24, 2024

Some raised doubts about using a solo key wallet in asset management. They suggested using a multisig wallet, which deemed safer. Think of it like a babank’sockbox, needing several personal keys to unlock. It works the same way. So, a multisig wallet with multiple keys provides more crypto asset security.

While the transparency is cool… WTF at putting half a billion dollars into a single pay-to-pubkey-hash address.

That's completely insane. Use multisig. And prove to the world that you're using multisig. https://t.co/ULCQUkIbCE
— Peter Todd/mempoolfullrbf=1 (@peterktodd) January 24, 2024

BitWise inquired about the company’s opinions regarding the support for Ordinals and the preference for single keys over multi-sig wallets but received no response to the publication.

The author’s views are for reference only and shall not constitute any investment advice. Please ensure you fully understand and assess the products and associated risks before purchasing.