The smallest unit of BTC, the satoshi, may now have data like music, artwork, and video games connected to it thanks to ordinals, which were introduced in January. Based on Ethereum, a digital asset is created that resembles an NFT. On the other hand, all the relevant data is entirely saved on the Bitcoin blockchain rather than being hosted elsewhere as is customary.
We start with our #Bitcoin mempool, where we see a marked character shift this year.
The sharp fee pressure spike during FTX stands out, as does the sustained fee pressure in 2023.
These plateaus are aligned with three waves of Inscriptions, as people rushed to get in under 1M pic.twitter.com/OuEJDPLKAq
— glassnode (@glassnode) April 30, 2023
Over 2.39 million Ordinals have reportedly been engraved thus far, according to Glassnode. The Bitcoin mempools, which store unconfirmed bitcoin transactions, have also seen a dramatic alteration this year. With the exception of ordinals, according to Glassnode, the majority of bitcoin transactions are now financial in nature and are often started by cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to Glassnode, Inscriptions account for 10% to 20% of the fees paid and 30% to 40% of the transactions mined.