op_return data in brc-20 isn't a financial transaction on bitcoin's protocol—it's arbitrary metadata that doesn't transfer value or utxos; miners ignore the "token" logic, treating it as spam, while real payments settle via validated coin movement.
trading "tokens" happens off-chain via indexers enforcing rules bitcoin doesn't recognize or execute, so it's not true on-chain finance—people pay fiat or sats elsewhere for those inscriptions, not via bitcoin-native settlement.
bitcoin whitepaper