Network transaction fees surge as inscriptions craze continues
Transaction fees on various blockchains have experienced a significant increase due to the ongoing trend of inscriptions. This spike in demand for blockspace is not limited to the Bitcoin network, as Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains have also seen a surge in gas spent on inscriptions.
Avalanche and Arbitrum One lead in gas spent on inscriptions
Avalanche network recorded the highest gas spent with over $5.6 million, followed by Arbitrum One with $2.1 million spent on inscriptions. Within the past 24 hours, 58% of Avalanche’s network gas was dedicated to EVM inscriptions, while zkSync Era saw 48% of its fees going toward them. BNB Chain also witnessed 73% of its transactions being dedicated to inscriptions.
Severe impact on Arbitrum One network
The situation was so severe on the Arbitrum One network that it caused an outage lasting 78 minutes on December 15. EVM inscriptions, similar to Ordinals on the Bitcoin network, involve embedding information in transaction call data to generate unique non-fungible assets on-chain.
Bitcoin network also affected by surge in inscriptions
The Bitcoin network has not been immune to the surge in inscriptions either. The increase in block space demand and transaction fees has made it impractical for most people to use Bitcoin for peer-to-peer digital transactions. Currently, there are almost 280,000 unconfirmed transactions, resulting in transaction fees reaching as high as $37.
Hot Take: Inscriptions drive adoption of layer-2 solutions
Bitcoin pioneer Adam Back believes that the rise in transaction fees due to inscriptions will drive the adoption of layer-2 solutions and spur innovation. Meanwhile, an NFT and Ordinals expert noted that a single collection has generated more volume in the past 24 hours than several popular collections combined. The Bitcoin Frogs ordinals collection also holds the top spot in terms of market capitalization, reaching $182 million.
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