• Ordinals, a recently deployed Bitcoin NFT protocol, has pushed the 14-Day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) of transactions taking place on the Bitcoin network to near 2-year highs.
• As of the 7th of February, over 13,000 Ordinal NFTs had been minted directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain, with 6.77 BTC (worth around $150,000 at current prices) associated with their spend.
• While fees have yet to pick up due to Ordinals activity, there is potential for it to lead to a wider uptick in network activity that could benefit the BTC price in the long run.

Overview: The Impact of Ordinals on Bitcoin Network Activity

The recent deployment of an Ethereum-based non-fungible token (NFT) protocol called Ordinals onto the Bitcoin network has resulted in a surge in activity on the blockchain. This surge has caused the 14-Day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) of transactions taking place on the Bitcoin network hit its highest level since April 2021 earlier this month according to data from crypto analytics firm Glassnode.

Ordinals Data

As of 7 February 2023, BitMEX Research identified:
• Over 13,000 Ordinal NFTs being minted directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain;
• 526MB worth of blockspace being used; and
• 6.77BTC worth of related spending associated with these NFTs (around $150K at current prices).

Network Fees Unaffected So Far

Although some analysts and commentators have expressed concerns that these newly minted NFTs might put upwards pressure on Bitcoin’s transaction fees, Glassnode data shows that there has been no notable uptick as yet. This suggests that although miners may gain more revenue from fees if more Ordinal NFTs were created and used regularly within the network, this does not appear likely at present given their lacklustre usage so far.

Potential Impact on BTC Price

While there is currently no clear evidence for how much impact these newly minted NFTs will have on the BTC price in either direction, it can be assumed that any resulting increase in overall network activity could be beneficial for BTC’s market value over time.

Conclusion

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
 Despite concerns about increasing transaction fees due to new protocols such as Ordinals pushing up activity levels within the Bitcoin network, it appears that we are yet to see any noticeable effects as far as miner revenue goes. Nevertheless, if further adoption leads to increased overall activity levels within Bitcoin’s blockchain then this could result in a positive impact upon its market value over time – though this remains speculative for now.