The Bitcoin network is witnessing a surge in ordinal inscriptions, primarily as text files due to the BRC-20 token standard, according to data analytics firm Glassnode's report on Thursday. These inscriptions are increasingly occupying Bitcoin's block space via the Segwit data structure and Taproot, leading to a significant rise in the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) set.
Despite this development, monetary transactions remain the dominant content within each block. The increase in inscriptions has resulted in over 550,000 daily transactions and has expanded each block's content to around 3,500 transactions. However, these changes have not significantly impacted miners' earnings.
Bitcoin's mining difficulty has escalated by 50%, and with the halving event expected in just 206 days, miners could potentially face income stress. The income per hash rate is nearing historic lows, and network fees have doubled to approximately 38 BTC daily.
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