TL;DR
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Since the invention of Bitcoin Ordinals in January this year, some big brains have gone out and created a similar thing for other layer-1 blockchains like Litecoin and Dogecoin.
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As a result, the daily transaction numbers are through the roof! (More things to buy/trade = more buying/trading).
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Litecoin transactions have surged from ~100k transactions on May 1, to a high of ~584k on May 10 with over 2.6 million Litecoin Ordinals having been inscribed to date.
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Dogecoin numbers are even more nuts. They’ve jumped from ~17k transactions on May 1, up to 1.2M transactions on Saturday!
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While the rise of Ordinals on various layer-1 blockchains isn’t great for congestion, we wouldn’t be surprised if this is here to stay
Full Story
ICYMI, a bit over a week ago we wrote about how there’s a war brewing amongst the Bitcoin community over Ordinals.
You can think of Bitcoin Ordinals like NFTs, but on the Bitcoin network instead of, say, Ethereum or Solana.
With the Ordinals protocol, you can attach data to the Bitcoin network including things like text, images, games, and even ‘live snapchat-style webcam filters.’
But the trend doesn’t stop there.
Since the invention of Bitcoin Ordinals in January this year, some big brains have gone out and created a similar thing for other layer-1 blockchains like Litecoin and Dogecoin.
As a result, the daily transaction numbers are through the roof!
(More things to buy/trade = more buying/trading).
As per data from BitInfoCharts, Litecoin transactions have surged from ~100k transactions on May 1, to a high of ~584k on May 10 with over 2.6 million Litecoin Ordinals having been inscribed to date.
Dogecoin numbers are even more nuts. They’ve jumped from ~17k transactions on May 1, up to 1.2M transactions on Saturday!
So what does this all mean?
Depends who you ask.
For example, in an interview with Decrypt this week, Dogecoin core developer, Patrick Lodder, said:
“Something like this cannot become a real ‘feature’ because it has not had enough thought given to it…sustained and growing pressure on Dogecoin will cause this to die off quickly.”
But we’re not so sure…
While the popularity of Ordinals has mainly been built on meme coins, let’s not forget that before NFTs with utility, came NFTs that were not much more than a combination of JPEGs and hype.
Point is, they started as one thing, and then innovative people and projects took original NFTs in weird and wonderful directions.
(Think: generative NFTs, NFT-gated access to communities/events etc.)
So while the rise of Ordinals on various layer-1 blockchains isn’t great for congestion, we wouldn’t be surprised if this is here to stay – and for innovation to continue, maybe even solving the congestion issues.
(At least, we hope things go in that direction!)