A rather silent achiever in the market, the Coinlive analysis team found it interesting there is a noticeable lack of coverage on the SATS token.

Despite not being the first token on the BRC-20 protocol, SATS has experienced an approximately 4,000x surge in price within just four months since its launch 4 months ago.

As of publication, this makes it the 4th largest BRC-20 token in terms of 24 hour volume.

What is SATS?

SATS, the ninth inscription token on the BRC-20 protocol, refers to satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin.

According to a video on the SATS website, SATS was minted through the use of approximately $20 million USD, or 350 BTC.

SEE: SATS introduction video, as seen on the SATS website

We can verify the fee spent on the blockchain through Dune.

What's unverifiable, however, is as follows.

The video indicates a Medium article that UniSat will use SATS as a Bitcoin Layer 2's gas fee, which will effectively reduce all gas fees by 20%.

We've identified the article in question, but it does not make any references to a Bitcoin Layer 2, nor does it state SATS role in such a network.

The video does not offer more information on what Bitcoin Layer 2 might be or what it entails, but suggests that it will operate in a similar fashion to other EVM Layer 2s, having smart contracts and NFTs.

We at Coinlive find this highly suspicious.

The end of the video shows a link leading to a Ruiku Tech, a Taiwan-based technology firm that specialises in automated trading and blockchain marketing services.

Since the token has in actuality the same utility as a memecoin, it makes its rise, together with other more familiar memecoins like DOGE and PEPE, particularly interesting.

UniSat currently indicates that there are over 39,000 wallets holding the SATS token.

Chinese Influence

Perhaps most notable is how Chinese exchanges, notably Gate.io and Bitget, dominate the trading activity of the SATS token as of time of publication.

The token has recorded around $6 million in 24-hour transactions.

This results are objectively quite remarkable, considering that there is very limited information available on the token, its community, and its purpose.

What Are BRC-20 Tokens?

BRC-20 tokens were born as part of an experiment by an anonymous developer named Domo in March 9, 2023.

Unlike their Ethereum counterparts, BRC-20 tokens, like SATS, face constraints due to Bitcoin's absence of a virtual machine.

This limitation restricts interoperability, hindering easy transfers to other chains.

Unlike Ethereum, Bitcoin lacks turing completeness, and cannot handle complex tokens or store additional information outside the blockchain.

Coinlive previously reported on how companies like ZeroSync are attempting to solve this problem.

The proof-of-work consensus in the Bitcoin network provides enhanced security and immutability for BRC-20 token, but at the cost of efficiency, when compared to Ethereum's proof-of-stake mechanism.

BRC-20 Is Popular Again

BRC-20 activity dwindled significantly after the SATS mint, especially following the release of Runes, a new protocol released by the original Bitcoin Ordinals found.

Despite its sluggish growth after the SATS mint, it appears that BRC-20 inscriptions have seen a rise as of time of publishing.

ORDI BRC-20 Tokens

SATS finds itself in good company with ORDI, short for Ordinals.

As the first ever BRC-20 token, It holds the distinction of being the first fungible token adhering to the BRC-20 standard.

The token continues to enjoy close to $750 million USD worth of 24h trading volume, making it at least a 75x bigger market than SATS.