Dune Analytics data show that Ethereum blobs are being used to create inscriptions, much like Ordinals on Bitcoin, at a record rate.
March 27 saw 2,437 blob inscriptions, which comprised 22.8% of the blobs posted in the day, according to a Dune Analytics user named Hildobby. That’s the highest usage of blobs posted among other Ethereum Layer 2s such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and Linea.
Moreover, increased blob inscriptions coincided with a spike in the fee on Base, reaching $300 before falling to about $30. Ethereum is also seeing a dip in slot utilization, likely due to blob-induced large block sizes.
“Inscriptions on EVM chains are data embeds found in transactions’ call data, which, much like Ordinals on Bitcoin, aim to mimic the versatility of smart-contract based ERC-20s and NFTs,” user Hildobby wrote on Dune Analytics’ website. “Inscriptions go against EVM design decisions, with gas costs being the only benefit, at the expense of indexing, non-compatibility and integration challenges.”
Ethereum’s Dencun update on March 13 allowed the creation of data blobs, which increase the inclusion of data in Ethereum transactions without hindering block processing time. Blobs are like bitcoin inscriptions, where data are associated with the smallest unit of bitcoin, called a satoshi. Tokens minted with such data are called Bitcoin Ordinals.
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