Ordinals inscriptions have been consistently higher this summer while the price of bitcoin was in a lull. The number of ordinals recorded onto the bitcoin blockchain has spiked above 400,000 three times since July 30, surpassing the May high of 400,091, according to Dune Analytics. Twice in July the number jumped above 385,000. Ordinals are a new protocol that makes it possible to store and trade digital content on the bitcoin blockchain. The idea is similar to NFTs, barring some technical differences, and investors are excited about their ability to bring utility to the Bitcoin network beyond just trading its native token. “The number of ordinals being inscribed is still going pretty solidly up and to the right,” said Alex Miller, CEO of Hiro, a bitcoin developer tools company. “People just want to be putting content and inscribing things onto the Bitcoin chain, which is why we’re climbing at a steady rate.” Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin is driven more by larger, more macro-level developments, he added. Ordinals first launched in February. Ordinals saw their first big spike in May, which led to a parabolic increase in bitcoin transaction fees . Given the newness of the idea, however, it’s anyone’s guess what it’s adoption trajectory will be — especially given the former hype and uncertainty around their cousins, NFTs. Although NFTs have a wide range of potential utility, they became largely known as digital art and a concept lost on many. The recent ramp in ordinals activity came amid a pullback in NFT trading, Miller explained. Bitcoin transaction fee activity has been more muted in recent weeks. “Transaction fees went crazy high because people were running large inscriptions, especially the initial setup ones for BRC-20 coins,” Miller explained about the first spike this year. “The inscriptions of late have been smaller and more efficient.” That’s due in part to a technical feature that allows users to save space on chain when recording data by referencing other existing inscriptions. These “recursive inscriptions” both “make the art that you’re seeing now, but the other thing is people are using this to figure out different ways to use the underlying technology that can get recombined and reused in different ways in the future for no- art based things as well.”
