July sees a surge in Bitcoin NFT ‘ordinal’ inscriptions, nearing 3.6 million monthly.
July sees a surge in Bitcoin NFT 'ordinal' inscriptions, nearing 3.6 million monthly.
The Rise of Bitcoin Inscriptions in July
Bitcoin Ordinal inscriptions volume has recorded a significant rise in July, with the month so far seeing nearly 3.6 million of them, pushing the total number to nearly 18 million. This surge in inscriptions volume comes after a somewhat calmer period in June. Notable daily spikes can be seen during the past two weekends: July 8-9, followed by July 16.
On Saturday, July 8, there were 350,524 daily inscriptions, which increased to 385,920 on the following Sunday. The next Sunday, July 16, recorded a slight drop to 385,604 inscriptions. These figures make the July 9 and July 16 peaks the second and third highest points, respectively.
Looking further into the July numbers, the last weekend (July 15-16) was quite busy, with 647,664 inscriptions over Saturday and Sunday combined. The weekend before that (July 8-9) recorded 736,444 inscriptions. In total this month, until July 18, there have been 3,577,123 daily inscriptions recorded. Comparatively, the entire month of June had 3,916,627 inscriptions. May saw the highest number of inscriptions, with 7,732,127. It is worth noting that crypto exchange giant Binance started supporting Ordinals in May.
The Significance of Bitcoin Ordinals
Bitcoin Ordinals is a new protocol designed by former Bitcoin Core contributor Casey Rodarmor, which was launched in late 2022 and gained traction in February 2023. This protocol allows users to embed data into the Bitcoin blockchain using “inscriptions.” Inscriptions are arbitrary content such as text or images that can be added to sequentially numbered satoshis to create unique “digital artifacts.” Essentially, the protocol provides a new way to put non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Bitcoin, making it more cost-effective to do so.
To date, nearly $55.4 million worth of ordinal fees has been paid, which amounts to approximately BTC 1,838.
The Most Popular Categories of Ordinals
Looking at specific categories, the most popular one in July has been ‘other’. However, up until late June, the busiest category by far was ‘text’.
NFT Sales on the Bitcoin Network
According to CryptoSlam, NFTs minted on the Bitcoin network have seen significant sales in the past 30 days. These sales amount to $121 million, with $16.6 million in the last 7 days, and $1.15 million in the past 24 hours as of the time of writing (10 UTC).
