Ethereum Blob is being used to create “inscriptions” at a record pace. According to Hildobby’s statistics, there were 4,638 Blob inscriptions on the 27th, accounting for 32.4% of the total Blob releases that day.
(Previous Summary: Meme coin Base’s trading volume increased tenfold, surpassing 220 million pounds, and Gas fees increased even more before the Dencun upgrade.)
(Background: Cancun upgrade completed – Did Ethereum L2’s Gas fees really decrease significantly? How did ARB, OP, STRK perform in terms of price?)
On March 14th, Ethereum successfully launched the Dencun upgrade, which significantly reduced transaction fees on the second layer (L2) network, and is widely regarded as one of the most notable improvements to user experience in the Ethereum upgrade.
However, there have been recent doubts about the effectiveness of the Dencun upgrade. Firstly, Base, the second layer chain under Coinbase, saw a surge in transaction fees to pre-upgrade levels due to the meme coin frenzy.
Secondly, the Blob technology introduced by the Dencun upgrade was intended to expand Ethereum by providing more storage space and thus reducing transaction fees on the second layer network. However, it is now being extensively used to create “inscriptions,” which goes against the original goal.
Further reading: Meme coin Base’s trading volume increased tenfold, surpassing 220 million pounds, and Gas fees increased even more before the Dencun upgrade.
Inscriptions account for 32.4% of Blob releases
According to Hildobby, a well-known crypto venture capital data analyst, there were 4,638 Blob inscriptions on the 27th, accounting for 32.4% of the total Blob releases that day. This is the highest Blob usage rate among other Ethereum L2 networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and Linea.
The above image shows the number of Blob usage categories, and the below image shows the percentage of Blob usage categories. The purple color represents “inscriptions,” which make up the majority of Blob quantities.
Base Fee briefly exceeded 300 pounds
Furthermore, as the number of Blob inscriptions increased significantly, the Base Fee also briefly surged to as high as $300. Clearly, the increase in Blob inscriptions is one of the reasons for the surge in transaction fees.
Hildobby points out that inscriptions on the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) are embedded data in transactions. They attempt to mimic the versatility of ERC20 and NFT, which are the foundations of smart contracts, similar to Ordinals on Bitcoin. The practice of inscriptions contradicts the design decisions of the EVM and the only benefit is the reduction in gas fees, but this comes at the cost of indexing difficulties, incompatibility, and integration challenges.
Whether the phenomenon of EVM inscriptions will motivate Ethereum developers to undertake corresponding technical reforms remains to be seen.
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