The congestion caused by Ordinals inscriptions is not limited to the Bitcoin network; EVM chains are also experiencing a notable surge in weekend activity.
The growing popularity of the Ordinals protocol has increased transaction fees not only on the Bitcoin network but also across all blockchains utilizing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The increased demand for blockspace extends beyond Bitcoin to all EVM-compatible chains.
Over the weekend, the number of Ordinals inscriptions on EVM-based chains surged, resulting in increased gas fees as users competed for limited block space.
On December 16th, Dune Analytics reported an all-time high of $8.3 million in gas spent on Ordinals inscriptions, with Avalanche leading the spending at over $5.6 million and Arbitrum One following with $2.1 million.
In the past 24 hours, there has been a noticeable allocation of network gas fees on Avalanche (58%) and zkSync Era (48%) towards EVM transactions.
The BNB Chain has experienced a significant increase in transaction volume over the past 24 hours, with 73% of all transactions being related to EVM.
The high demand for EVM transactions on Arbitrum One led to a network overload, resulting in a 78-minute outage on December 15th.
Similar to Ordinals, EVM transactions work by embedding information in transaction call data to create unique NFTs on-chain.
In addition to the increased network activity, the surge in transactions has driven up the demand for block space and transaction fees on the Bitcoin network.
Mempool. space indicates that the Bitcoin mempool currently has a backlog of over 280,000 unconfirmed transactions.
The elevated fees, a consequence of the surge in inscriptions, have rendered Bitcoin transactions unaffordable for many users, particularly those relying on small transactions.
Bitcoin pioneer and cryptographer Adam Back anticipate that the popularity of inscriptions will persist, driving the adoption of layer-2 solutions and innovation in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
According to Leonidas, an expert in the NFT and Ordinals space, the Bitcoin Frogs collection of Ordinals NFTs leads in market capitalization with a value of $182 million.
CryptoSlam reported that secondary sales of the Bitcoin Frogs collection spiked to $4.8 million on December 17th.
Read also: Why Rollups present a unique business model in crypto: Insights from Galaxy Ventures Exec
