Ordinals Surpass 10 Million Inscriptions on Bitcoin Network

Just days after its creator stepped down as the project’s caretaker, the number of Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin network surpassed 10 million.

Casey Rodarmor announced on Twitter on May 28 that he had resigned as the project’s primary maintainer, citing his inability to give Ordinals the necessary attention.

Rodarmor delegated the responsibility to the pseudonymous coder Raphjaph.

The Ordinals protocol quickly became the most popular way to mint new assets on the Bitcoin blockchain after its introduction in January.

Ordinals began as a method of “inscribing” data in the witness portion of Bitcoin transactions and are written onto individual satoshis, the smallest divisible unit of BTC.

However, it was the introduction of the BRC-20 token standard in early March that pushed the number of Ordinals inscriptions into overdrive.

This new token standard, introduced by the pseudonymous developer “Domo,” enabled Bitcoin users for the first time in history to mint entirely new tokens.

According to data from BRC-20.io, the number of Bitcoin-based tokens skyrocketed from a few hundred in the first week to over 25,000 at the time of publication.

The rise of Ordinals has not been without controversy, as many Bitcoin proponents have criticized the method of “inscribing” assets on the network as inefficient and wasteful, particularly regarding block space and transaction fees.

As a result, other developers have investigated the use of intelligent contracts to mint Bitcoin assets and NFTs.

On the other hand, Bitcoin proponents have lauded Ordinals for its ability to integrate new users into the greater Bitcoin community.

Peter Schiff, a vigorous opponent of Bitcoin, recently issued a small number of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Bitcoin using the Ordinals protocol, marking the first time the gold-obsessed investor interacted with Bitcoin other than to criticize it.

While it is evident that Ordinals have played a significant role in the escalation of Bitcoin transaction fees, the flurry of network activity has been a boon for miners, who have received over $44 million in Ordinals-related fees, according to data from Dun & Bradstreet.