Bitcoin users have registered more than 10 million subscriptions in the Bitcoin blockchain using the new popular Ordinals protocol.
The milestone comes shortly after Ordinals founder Casey Rordamor stepped down as chief maintainer of the project on Saturday.
The blistering growth of Ordinals
According to data from Dune analysisAt the time of writing, Bitcoin has exactly 10,018,046 ordinal numbers, the vast majority of which have been recorded in the past month alone.
An inscription refers to data embedded in the witness data of a Bitcoin transaction. Inscriptions have always been possible on Bitcoin, but Ordinals allows users to write data into a single identifiable satoshi, opening up a range of potential uses.
When the Ordinals inscriptions first gained traction in February, their primary use case was producing non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This has already made Bitcoin the second most popular network for trading NFTs next to Ethereum, according to CryptoSlam.
However, Ordinals inscriptions increased in April as users began using the technology to issue fungible crypto tokens, through the experimental BRC-20 symbolic standard. The standard was initially very popular for issuing memecoins, but is now being used to host the first Bitcoin-based stablecoin Stable USD (USD).
After its early March revelation, BRC-20 sparked an avalanche of new inscriptions that began in late April and peaked in early May. The transition in Ordinals dominance from NFTs to BRC-20 tokens is visible on the blockchain, with the takeover of text-based scripts over image-based scripts at that time.
Roaring subscriptions and fees
As of April 20, there were a total of 1,193,102 Ordinals inscriptions, according to data from Dune. That number more than tripled to 3,776,366 on May 5, when daily transaction fees generated by related transactions skyrocketed. To date, Ordinals has brought Bitcoin miners an additional $44 million in fees and 91% of its subscriptions are text-based.
Certain Bitcoiners, such as Blockstream CEO Adam Back, have objected to Ordinals “clogging” Bitcoin’s blockchain by making transfers more expensive for those using the blockchain for its intended purpose. On the other hand, billionaire Bitcoin investor Michael Saylor sees Ordinals as a potential foundation for future innovation, including trading digital securities on Bitcoin.
Ordinals advocates were quick to celebrate the protocol’s milestone on Monday. Dan Held – former product manager at Kraken – said on Twitter that he’s convinced Ordinals is more than just a fad.
I’ve been in Bitcoin since 2012 and have almost never seen so much excitement.
I’ll take the other side of that bet. Any qualitative reasons why you feel this way or just Fudding because you personally don’t like it?
— Dan Held 🧙♂️ (@danheld) May 29, 2023
Ordinals founder Casey Rodarmor handed over lead maintainer status to @raphjaph on Twitter on Saturday, saying he ‘wasn’t able to give’ [Ordinals] the attention it deserves.