The recent trend of minting inscriptions on various blockchain networks has led to unprecedented levels of activity and throughput on several chains. Notable networks like Arbitrum and BNB Chain have experienced a significant increase in transactions, as reported by an anonymous analyst known as "hildobby". During December, a range of cryptocurrency venture funds, including Dragonfly, Goerli, zkSync, Arbitrum, Gnosis, and BNB Chain, hit their peak daily transactions per second (TPS).
A large portion of these transactions, ranging from 83% to 97%, are dedicated to inscription transactions on these five chains. Furthermore, other networks like Fantom, Celo, Avalanche, and Polygon also set new daily TPS records in November. According to a Dune Analytics dashboard, Optimism and Avalanche achieved hourly TPS records of 87,960 and 289,285 respectively, with these figures being the highest in the last two years, particularly amplified during the recent inscription craze.
The surge in inscription transactions has also led to a spike in the cost of natural gas, which is used in the minting process, reaching an all-time high. The inscriptions, which can range from meme coins to social media profile pictures, are minted using transaction calls on-chain based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This process has significantly increased the demand for block space, as more users engage in these activities.
On December 19, Ava Labs co-founder Kevin Sekniqi observed that the Avalanche C-Chain (contract chain) hit a TPS of 977, noting that many EVM chains were struggling to cope with the load. He described the inscription trend as a "huge stress test" for the current infrastructure and underscored the necessity for subnets to manage the additional traffic effectively.
The inscription gold rush has not only pushed the networks to their limits but has also led to full and partial outages on several networks, including Arbitrum, zkSync, Cronos, and Celestia. This phenomenon underscores both the growing interest in blockchain technology and the need for robust infrastructure to support such high levels of activity.
