Out of the Ordinal-ry: Bitcoin average block size hits all-time high

Bitcoin’s mean artifact size has deed all-time highs supra 2.5MB for the archetypal clip since its inception successful 2009, driven by the motorboat of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) protocol Ordinals successful January 2023.

Block size data from Blockchain.com reflects a leap successful Bitcoin artifact size from the opening of February 2023, expanding implicit 2MB successful the weeks pursuing the motorboat of the Ordinals Protocol.

The mean artifact size implicit the past 24 hours successful megabytes: Source: Blockchain.com

As Cointelegraph antecedently reported, participants from the Bitcoin mining ecosystem person already made implicit $600,000 processing transactions of Ordinals, which person been dubbed arsenic Bitcoin-based nonfungible tokens.

Related: Bitcoin hits grounds 44M non-zero addresses, acknowledgment to Ordinals: Glassnode

Software technologist Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals protocol successful January, allowing the instauration of Bitcoin ‘digital artifacts’ connected the network. These tin comprise of JPEG images, PDFS and video and audio files.

As Rodarmor outlines successful the Ordinals documentation, these integer artifacts tin beryllium inscribed to an idiosyncratic Satoshi that makes up a full Bitcoin. Each BTC is made up of 100,000,000 Satoshis.

“Individual satoshis tin beryllium inscribed with arbitrary content, creating unsocial Bitcoin-native integer artifacts that tin beryllium held successful Bitcoin wallets and transferred utilizing Bitcoin transactions. Inscriptions are arsenic durable, immutable, secure, and decentralized arsenic Bitcoin itself.”

The Bitcoin assemblage has been divided implicit the quality to inscribe integer artifacts to the blockchain, with arguments for and against providing plentifulness of nutrient for thought. One of these large talking points has been the accrued usage of artifact abstraction to inscribe assorted Ordinals.

Bitcoin’s mean artifact size has hovered betwixt 0.7MB and 1.5MB from July 2021 up until February 2023. From Feb.5 onward, Bitcoin’s mean artifact size surpassed 2MB for the archetypal clip and presently sits astatine astir 2.2MB astatine the clip of writing.

The inceptions of Bitcoin Ordinals has besides seen the web deed a record 44 cardinal non-zero addresses, as per information from Glassnode. Glassnode's latest newsletter notes that Ordinals vie for artifact abstraction request but person not yet importantly impacted web fees.

Glassnode describes the advent of Ordinals arsenic a "new and unsocial infinitesimal successful Bitcoin history," whereby innovation generates web enactment without the "classical transportation of coin measurement for monetary purposes."