Exciting news emerged on August 21st as “Leonidas,” the developer behind Ordinals, unveiled astonishing data about Bitcoin’s recent transaction surge. In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin processed an impressive 530,788 transactions, with an impressive 84.9%—accounting for 450,785 transactions—related to Ordinals. This comes in contrast to industry claims that “Ordinals are dead.”
The trend gains further support from Dune Analytics, which reported over 400,000 Ordinal inscriptions on August 20th. Bitinfocharts also noted a daily Bitcoin transaction count around 556,000, indicating that the vast majority of network activity was tied to Ordinals. Industry researcher Eric Wall noted that 54% of Bitcoin’s transactions in the past week were Ordinals-related.
Remarkably, Dune’s data showed a staggering 25.5 million Ordinal inscriptions, generating $53.4 million in fees on the Bitcoin network. BRC-20 token minting largely drives these inscriptions, with 1.9 million minted last week.
Among these inscriptions, about 140,000 are recursive inscriptions—an upgraded version of Ordinals. This enhancement enables developers to utilize data from previous inscriptions, potentially enabling Bitcoin to support intricate applications, video games, and other advanced use cases.
Contrary to recent reports suggesting a decline in Ordinals NFT usage and sales volume, Bitcoin’s network activity tells a different story. Since its January launch, the Ordinals protocol has sparked a surge in inscriptions, causing congestion and spikes in transaction fees, reaching a peak in April and May. Stay tuned for more exciting developments in the world of NFTs and blockchain technology!
