Smart contract on the bitcoin network

The BRC-20 “token standard: is an experimental fungible token created using Ordinals and Inscriptions and saved on the bitcoin base chain. It utilizes Ordinal inscriptions of JSON data to deploy token contracts, mint tokens, and transfer tokens.
The BRC-20 token was created by Twitter user @domodata on March 8th, 2023. The name is a play on Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard, but they don’t have the ability to interact with smart contracts like the EVM standard it derivates its name from. The Bitcoin Manuel

There have been no shortage of means to create tokens on other chains, which have their own markets and exchanges with liquidity where they can be traded. Exchanges are the vehicle for speculation and scams, and hearing this ERC-20 term might attract users who are familiar with, and this behaviour might migrate to bitcoin, this has caused a spike in the blockchain onchain activities in the bitcoin network causing fees to rise as people are trying out this new token feature on the bitcoin network.

The first BRC-20 Token (ordi)
The first token contract deployed was for the “ordi” token, with a limit of 1,000 tokens per mint and 21,000,000 tokens total.

Ordinal wallets such as Unisat were quick to deploy tooling for the BRC-20 standard, and in less than 18 hours, all 21,000,000 ordi tokens had been minted, with pending mints for an additional 1,500,000 ordi tokens that were not within the limit.

Thats is to say the creator of this side chain on bitcoin is doing this for fun and not for development as his Tweet suggest we do relevant research before investing in any assest.

The rise in the number of new cryptocurrency is on the high side as many scammers will disguises themselves as legit projects and reap of investors of their hard earn money.