Bitcoin’s Blockchain Growth Accelerates With Trend of Ordinal Inscriptions

The Bitcoin blockchain has 40.49 gigabytes (GB) to go until it reaches half a terabyte (TB), and with the recent trend of Ordinal inscriptions, it’s likely to get there faster. The average block size reached a high of 2.52 megabytes (MB) on Feb. 12, 2023, but block sizes have subsided and dropped to an average … Read more

Btcpay Introduces New Coinjoin Plugin for Enhanced Bitcoin Privacy for Merchants

On Monday, Wasabi Wallet and the open-source bitcoin payment processor Btcpay announced a new plugin for the Btcpay server. The plugin implements Wasabi’s Wabisabi coinjoin coordination protocol, allowing merchants to benefit from privacy enhancement. By activating the newly launched plugin, all the funds that merchants receive and send will be coinjoined, or mixed together with … Read more

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Reaches All-Time High as Miners Face Second-Largest Increase This Year

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty reached an all-time high (ATH) on Feb. 24, 2023, at block height #778,176, reaching 43.05 trillion hashes and surpassing the 40 trillion mark for the first time ever. The network’s difficulty increased by 9.95%, which is the second-largest rise this year, as Bitcoin recorded a combined 24.89% increase during the last 60 … Read more

NFT Sales Soar 138% in Past Week, Blur Market Dominates This Week’s ETH-Based NFT Sales

Non-fungible token (NFT) sales have soared this past week, climbing 138.15% higher than the week before. Sales recorded between last Friday and Feb. 24, 2023, indicate that $801 million in NFT sales have been settled over the last seven days. Ethereum Digital Collectibles and Mutant Ape Yacht Club Lead NFT Sales Surge While crypto asset … Read more

Ethereum’s Transition to Proof-of-Stake Yields Deflationary Results

After the transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), Ethereum’s annual issuance rate has been reduced to negative 0.057%, according to statistics 158 days after The Merge. The metrics indicate that more ethereum tokens have been removed than issued, and if the chain were still under PoW consensus, 1,823,678 ether would have been minted to … Read more

Bitcoin Continues to Record Blocks Above the 3.75 MB Range as Ordinal Inscriptions Near 150,000

As Ordinal inscriptions approach the 150,000 mark, blocks larger than 3 MB have become commonplace, with many blocks near the 4 MB range. Meanwhile, after the average transaction fee on-chain rose 122% higher at the beginning of February 2023, the average fee has remained the same over the last few weeks and is currently coasting … Read more

Metaverse, AI, and Liquid Staking Tokens Lead Year-to-Date Crypto Asset Gains Among Top 125

In 2023, the leading crypto assets, such as bitcoin and ethereum, have captured decent gains. Bitcoin has increased 17.2% over the last 30 days, and ethereum has risen 9.3% in the same timeframe. However, year-to-date statistics show that bitcoin is down 38.3%, and ethereum has lost 39.3% against the U.S. dollar. The following presents a … Read more

NFT Marketplace Blur Launches Native Token, BLUR Price Drops 85% in a Matter of Hours

The Blur non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace launched its native token this week, and users who were awarded token allotments received “care packages.” Blur tokens began trading at noon on Feb. 14, reaching a high of $5.02 per token. However, the coin has since dropped more than 85% against the U.S. dollar. BLUR Token Launch Records … Read more

Bitcoin Records Largest Mined Block to Date, 4 MB Block Containing NFT Causes Unease Among Small-Block Supporters 

Amid the controversy surrounding the Ordinals project and the debate over what types of data should be stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, the network mined its largest block, nearly 4 MB in size, containing just 63 transactions. One of the transactions was a 3.94 MB Ordinal inscription featuring an image of a wizard, and the … Read more

Nearly $13 Billion in Sales: Breaking Down 5 NFT Collections by Sales Volume 

Non-fungible token (NFT) assets have existed since at least 2014, but interest in them began to rise in January 2021, according to Google Trends data. Approximately one year later, the search term “NFT” reached its highest score on Google Trends. During that time the top five NFT collections, in terms of all-time sales volume, have … Read more