Bitcoin Just Processed More Transactions Than Ever Before

Bitcoin just processed more transactions in a single day than at any point in its 14-year history — thanks to Ordinals.

The daily number of Bitcoin transactions surged beyond 568,300 on Sunday — nearly 78,000 more than its previous peak during the top of the 2017 bull run.

Over 307,000 of those transactions were Ordinals, the most on a single day ever and a 16% jump on the previous record set on Saturday, per a Dune dashboard.

That means Ordinals contributed around 54% of Bitcoin’s daily transactions at its all-time record.

More Bitcoin transactions than ever before (source: Blockchair)

Debuted in January, Ordinals allow data such as audio, art or even video games, to be attached (or “inscribed”) to individual satoshis, BTC’s smallest unit.

The result is a unique digital asset in the same vein as an Ethereum-based NFT, for example. Although, the relevant data exists entirely on the Bitcoin blockchain, rather than hosted externally, as is often the case.

More than 2.39 million Ordinals have been inscribed to date, per Glassnode, which said it has seen a “marked character shift” in Bitcoin mempools this year (Bitcoin mempools store unconfirmed bitcoin transactions).

Loading Tweet..

Text-based Ordinals inscriptions are apparently growing in number.

Ordinals aside, most other bitcoin transactions right now are monetary in nature, often triggered by crypto exchanges, according to Glassnode.

“Importantly, Inscriptions represent approximately 30% to 40% of mined transactions — 10% to 20% of fees paid,” Glassnode said.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox.
Lightspeed: All things Solana.
The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.