Ordinal inscriptions have had a significant impact on the BTC network and the overall operation of the blockchain. This article aims to highlight the major changes that have occurred since the launch of the Bitcoin Ordinals.
1.Higher level of difficulty on the BTC blockchain
Based on the collected data from Mempool, the BTC network's difficulty level was approximately 37.5T in January 2023. However, since then, the rate of difficulty has increased rapidly, reaching a new high of 46.84T. This represents a 24.9% increase prior to the launch of Bitcoin Ordinals. As a result, node operators are forced to use greater computational power in order to handle the busy traffic blocks on the blockchain, which causes the hashrate to jump up to 397 EH/s.
2.Increasing transaction fees - Decreasing transaction speed
According to the graphical data from Mempool, due to the high level of difficulty caused by the large volume of ordinal inscriptions, transaction fees have been increasing continuously, with each transactional block costing up to $9139. Besides the expensive fees, a large number of inscriptions have contributed to network congestion, which in turn leads to slower transaction processing time. Thus, people who primarily use Bitcoin for its monetary purpose of transacting have expressed concerns regarding this situation.
3.Fast growing number of inscriptions
Despite concerns over blockchain congestion and expensive transaction fees, the number of ordinal inscriptions continues to grow at an alarming pace with each passing day. As per the data gathered from Dune, the current total number of ordinal inscriptions has reached 579,553, with 60% of them being minted in the month of March. The data shows that the peak was observed on March 9th, in which 31,692 inscriptions were minted on the BTC blockchain.