Bitcoin transaction fee revenue soared this month thanks to Ordinals

The amount of transaction fee revenue collected by bitcoin miners soared in May, hitting its highest level in over two years.

According to The Block’s Data Dashboard, the share of mining revenue from transaction fees is at 14.3% as of May 29.

That’s a more than 11% increase over April and the highest since April 2021, as shown in the chart below.

Why the sudden jump? The growth of Ordinals, a method of creating on-chain artworks tied to satoshis, which are the smallest unit of account on the bitcoin network.

As previously reported by The Block, bitcoin has emerged as the second-most voluminous network for NFTs for the past few weeks, after Ethereum, according to weekly trade data.

Transaction traffic on bitcoin hit a new all-time monthly high in May, reaching 14.9 million as of May 29. Overall monthly mining revenue is at its highest level since last May, nearing $840 million as of today.

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