How to Buy and Sell Ordinals on Magic Eden. A Complete Guide for 2024.

Ordinals have taken the Bitcoin community by storm since its launch in January of 2023. Created by well-known Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor, Ordinals provide a new way of looking at NFTs. Read on to learn everything you need to know on Ordinals – what they are, how to mint Ordinals, how to stay safe while exploring this new concept and more. 

What Are Ordinals?

Ordinals are a unique new concept in the Bitcoin ecosystem, where individual Satoshis (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) are inscribed with content such as text, images, or videos, turning them into distinctive digital assets known as Digital Artifacts, or NFTs. The creation of Ordinals allows your digital assets to be inscribed directly into Bitcoin blocks, allowing Bitcoin-native, on-chain NFTs.  Ordinal Theory was later extended to enable Bitcoin Runes.

Ordinals vary in price depending on their uniqueness, historical/cultural significance, artistic value and market demand. Prices can change rapidly, so it's always a good idea to research the most current information if you're considering buying Ordinals.

Getting Your Ordinal Wallet

To start minting Ordinals, you’ll need to download an Ordinals-compatible wallet, like Magic Eden’s. 

To see if a Bitcoin wallet supports Ordinals, check its website or updates, and make sure it lets you send and receive Bitcoin. If you're not sure, you can ask the wallet's support team or look for recommendations in the Bitcoin community to help you find the right wallet. 

Discovering Which Ordinals to Buy

To find your first Ordinal, you can browse an Ordinals marketplace like Magic Eden’s. On our marketplace, you’ll be able to view top collections, floor prices, market caps and more. 

‍How to Purchase Ordinals

Once you’ve found the Ordinal you’d like to purchase, you’ll need to connect your Bitcoin-funded wallet to the NFT marketplace you’re using. If you don’t know how to fund your wallet, you can learn with our help article. These instructions will cover how to buy Ordinals on Magic Eden, but the process is similar across Ordinal marketplaces. 

1. Navigate to magiceden.io/ordinals. Click “Connect Wallet” on the upper right part of the screen. 
2. Select the Bitcoin Tab in the top left 
3. Select the Ordinals-compatible wallet you’d like to use. Our Ordinals marketplace currently has the following wallet options: 

• Magic Eden Wallet
• Xverse
• Unisat
• Leather (Hiro) 
• OKX wallet 
• TokenPocket

When you connect your wallet, note you are using two addresses: 

• the Ordinals address for receiving and storing the Digital Artifacts; and 
• the Bitcoin address for payments and transaction fees

On the Magic Eden Wallet, you can see these by hovering over “Receive.”

4. If you are using Magic Eden’s Ordinals marketplace for the first time, this message will appear on your screen when you make your first transaction. 

Click the “Prepare your wallet” button. This will take you to a transaction in your wallet that you’ll approve. 

When you confirm the transaction, you'll receive a message on Magic Eden. Please note that Bitcoin transactions take some time to be processed. 

Once the transaction is complete, you'll be able to trade on Magic Eden’s marketplace. 

5. Click on the collection you like and select the specific Ordinal you’d like to purchase by pressing “Buy Now,” or the gray box next to it to make an “Offer.”

To buy now: 

• A box will then appear on the bottom right corner. This will break down the costs that go with your purchase, which will show as:
  • Price 
  • Taker Fee 
  • Network Fee 
  • Creator Tip (this is optional and only on select collections) 

• Once you’re ready, you can press “Buy.”

• If your offer is accepted by the owner, your transaction will be completed, your BTC will be withdrawn and the NFT will be transferred to your address. 

*Please note that your offer will be invalidated if the funds are moved from your wallet.

To make an offer:  

• Press the gray box next to the “Buy Now” button. 
• You’ll be redirected to a new page, where you can select “Make an Offer.”
• Put in the amount you want to offer, as well as how long you want to give the owner to respond. 

6. You’ll be asked to sign, or partially sign, the transaction in your wallet. 

When you select “Buy Now,” you will sign the transaction in your wallet. Your Ordinal will be locked until the transaction is confirmed or fails. 

When you make an offer instead of buying now, you partially sign a transaction equal to the offer amount. If the owner accepts your offer, that will complete the transaction. 

7. Once your transaction goes through, you will receive a confirmation message. 

And with that, congratulations! You are now the owner of your very own Ordinal. 

How to Sell Ordinals

To sell your Ordinals, you’ll need to go to a marketplace that is compatible with them. We’ll be using Magic Eden’s Ordinals Marketplace. 

1. Connect the wallet that holds the Ordinal(s) you’d like to sell.

2. Navigate to “My Items.” This is located in the dropdown on the upper right of your screen, where it says how much Bitcoin you’re holding in your wallet.

3. In “My Items,” select which Ordinals you’d like to sell. Once selected, press “List” and set your parameters to put it on the market. 

4. You can monitor the status of the sale by going to “My Items” and switching to the:

• “Offers” tab for pending offers on your Ordinal.
• “Activity” tab to see if someone has bought your Ordinal.  

Safety Tips When Buying Ordinals 

• Use a secure wallet 

When interacting with Ordinals, ensure you are using a secure wallet. Make sure that the wallet is known and reputable. 

Magic Eden Wallet has been verified and audited by Halborn, a world-renowned leader in the blockchain industry. You can learn more about the wallet’s security here. 

• Keep private keys private 

Never share your wallet’s private key or seed phrase with anyone, no matter how trustworthy they may seem. 

Sharing these elements of your wallet can cause your wallet to get hacked, losing access to everything you own in it.

• Use a reputable Ordinals marketplace 

Research and use well-known and trusted marketplaces that have protocols to protect buyers and sellers. Magic Eden thoroughly vets projects based on quality and safety before they can make it to our Ordinals marketplace. 

You can read more about marketplaces through projects’ resources, which are typically located at the bottom of their site. 

• Triple-check everything 

Before you finalize a purchase, carefully check the specific details of the Ordinal you're buying. This includes its unique number (like a serial number that tells you exactly which piece you're getting) and the address of the wallet where you want the Ordinal to be sent.  You can track your Ordinals transaction, whether buying or selling, using your transaction hash.

You can think of your wallet address as an email address for your digital assets; if it's wrong, your Ordinal could end up in someone else's wallet. Double, and even triple-checking helps make sure your Ordinal safely reaches you.