Ordinal Inscriptions were first created on December 16, 2022. However, they didn’t gain much momentum until February 2, 2023. This was the day that a 3.96 MB block of Bitcoin was mined. Since then, 214.028 inscriptions has been added to Bitcoin’s blockchain. Between February and March, the trend in Ordinal Inscriptions was evident.
Between February 27 and February 27, Bitcoin’s average network fees and block sizes increased by approximately 26 days. Both the block size and network fee metrics reached their peak around February 12, and have declined since. Data shows that Bitcoin’s block size grew faster during that time.
Statistics show, for instance that the Bitcoin blockchain had 459.51GB size on February 27, 2023. The blockchain grew 7.77 GB in 26 days, which is roughly 0.28 GB per day, according to metrics.
A chart showing Bitcoin’s size between February 2 and today can visually show the spike. The blockchain’s growth was slower than expected, however, because larger blocks were being mined less frequently before Ordinal Inscriptions became popular. To reach 7.77 GB, it took 45 days from December 19, 2022 to February 2, 2023.
Over the period of 45 days, Bitcoin’s blockchain grew at an average rate of 0.173GB per day. The average fee for Bitcoin on February 28, 2023 is 0.000077 BTC or $1.82 per transaction. While the median fee at 0.000033 BTC or $0.777 per transaction, it is 0.000033 BTC .
Also, transactions are being confirmed at rates that range from 2 satoshis a byte (or $0.07) to 19 satoshis a byte (or $0.62), per transaction. The revenue miners earned per day during the Ordinal inscription trend peaked at $28.21million (block subsidy + fee), as compared to today’s $21.36million. Yet, miners of bitcoin ( Bitcoin) are still earning more than they were Dec. 24, 2022.
It will be interesting for us to see how Ordinal Inscriptions continue to impact metrics like average block sizes, median fees and overall growth of Bitcoin’s blockchain. These metrics are still elevated than they were before February, despite the fact that there has been less hype about Ordinal Inscriptions.
2 and the subsequent influx of inscriptions . After remaining below the threshold for months, the average and median fees remain higher than before the Ordinal trend. Block sizes are still above the 1.60MB threshold.