How Do Inscriptions and BRC-20 Impact the Bitcoin Ecosystem?

• Bitcoin Inscription volume has seen a substantial surge following the advent of BRC-20s.
• The Inscription volume surpassed 50 million in December 2023, and currently exceeded 60 million.
• Bitcoin’s mempool transaction count reached an all-time high in 2023, influenced by Inscription volume and BRC-20 tokens.

In a recent X post, Binance Research has shed light on the substantial surge of Bitcoin Inscription volume since its inception in December 2022. Despite its slow growth in the beginning, the Inscription volume saw an explosion triggered by the advent of BRC-20s.

As per the X post, the total Bitcoin Inscription count reached 1 million in early April 2023, surpassing over 50 million in December. At present, the Inscription volume has exceeded the 60 million mark.

Inscriptions are “individual Satoshis,” the smallest Bitcoin units that could be tracked and inscribed with arbitrary content. As these inscriptions are like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), they are also known as “Bitcoin NFTs.” Binance Research’s post also shared insights on the BRC-20 tokens, stating,

BRC-20 is an experimental standard facilitating the creation, minting, and transfer of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. It leverages the Ordinal Protocol to inscribe JSON-based data onto individual sats, thereby generating fungible tokens.

Both inscriptions and BRC-20s significantly impact the Bitcoin network, with Bitcoin’s mempool transaction count reaching an all-time high in 2023. In addition, the Bitcoin ecosystem has also seen notable growth, driven by the influence of BRC-20 tokens and Inscription volume. The post read,

Inscriptions have reshaped the Bitcoin ecosystem by invigorating the developer community. They’ve bought in new developers, accelerated updates to existing projects, and stimulated new ideas within the community.

Moreover, Binance Research has illustrated the current landscape of the Bitcoin Ordinals, which have flourished into a “growing ecosystem.” The post narrated, “The landscape of Bitcoin Ordinals, albeit in its nascent stage, has already branched out to various verticals including DeFi, NFTs, and tooling.”