Bitcoin average block size hits all-time high
Bitcoin’s average block size has reached all-time highs above 2.5MB for the first time since its inception in 2009, driven by the launch of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) protocol Ordinals in January 2023.
Block size data from Blockchain.com reflects a jump in Bitcoin block size from the beginning of February 2023, increasing by over 2MB in the weeks following the launch of the Ordinals protocol.
As Cointelegraph previously reported, participants from the Bitcoin mining ecosystem have already made over $600,000 processing transactions of Ordinals, which have been called Bitcoin-based non-fungible tokens.
Related: Bitcoin Hits Record 44 Million Non-Zero Addresses Thanks to Ordinals: Glassnode
Software engineer Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals protocol in January, which allowed the creation of Bitcoin ‘digital artifacts’ on the network. These can consist of JPEG images, PDFs and video and audio files.
As Rodarmor outlines in the Ordinals documentation, these digital artifacts can be written to an individual Satoshi that makes up an entire Bitcoin. Each BTC consists of 100,000,000 Satoshis.
“Individual satoshis can be inscribed with arbitrary content, creating unique Bitcoin-native digital artifacts that can be held in Bitcoin wallets and transferred using Bitcoin transactions. Inscriptions are as durable, immutable, secure and decentralized as Bitcoin itself.”
The Bitcoin community has been divided over the possibility of entering digital artifacts into the blockchain, with arguments for and against giving plenty of food for thought. One of these major talking points has been the increased use of block space for entering different ordinals.
Bitcoin’s average block size has hovered between 0.7 MB and 1.5 MB from July 2021 to February 2023. From February 5 onwards, Bitcoin’s average block size passed 2 MB for the first time and currently sits at around 2.2 MB at the time of writing.
The launch of Bitcoin Ordinals has also seen the network hit a record 44 million non-zero addresses, according to data from Glassnode. Glassnode’s latest newsletter notes that Ordinals compete for demand for block space, but have yet to significantly impact network fees.
Glassnode describes the emergence of Ordinals as a “new and unique moment in Bitcoin history,” where innovation generates network activity without “classical transfer of coin volume for monetary purposes.”
