The Bitcoin blockchain has witnessed a significant milestone, with over 2 million Ordinal inscriptions registered as of April 28, 2023. This impressive achievement comes just over four months after the first Ordinal inscription was minted on December 16, 2022, at block height of 767,753. In total, inscription minting fees have reached 196.22 bitcoin, equivalent to $5.78 million.
The number of Ordinal inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain has been steadily increasing, with more than 2,116,396 inscriptions recorded at the time of writing. These inscriptions take various forms, including text, video, images, applications, and audio. Dune Analytics data shows that 67.6% of inscriptions are text-based, while 22.6% are images in JPG or PNG formats. Additionally, over 13,000 Ordinal inscriptions feature an application, and over 6,000 image inscriptions are animated.
Popular collections and market trends
According to information from ordinalswallet.com, last week’s highest trade volume belonged to Clay Pepes, with 4.57 BTC or $134,082 in seven-day trade volume. Other popular collections following Clay Pepes in trade volume include Sub-100K, Bitcoin Punks, Pixel Pepes, Sub-10K, and BTC Machines. The growing trend of Ordinal inscriptions has not been without challenges, as a bug led to the orphaning of 1,200 inscriptions from the index.
NFT historian Leonidas.og explained that the orphaned inscriptions were discovered just before inscription number 420,285. The bug was caused by the Ordinals protocol only counting inscriptions that were part of the first input of a transaction. Despite the introduction of new blockchain features, such as Bitcoin Stamps and Litecoin-based Ordinal inscriptions, the trend of BTC-based Ordinal inscriptions remains strong.
Currently, over 18,500 stamps have been added to the Bitcoin blockchain since the project’s inception. Meanwhile, Litecoin Ordinal inscriptions have seen more activity, with 224,060 inscriptions, but the trend of LTC-based inscriptions has recently slowed down. The continued popularity of Ordinal inscriptions demonstrates a robust and resilient market for this type of digital collectible scheme.