EVM Inscriptions Destabilized Ethereum L2 Networks and Raised Gas Fees

The popularity of transaction inscriptions on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible networks triggered several outages in some Ethereum L2 solutions. Avalanche, zkSync, Cronos, and Arbitrum blockchain networks were temporarily overloaded. Gas consumption on EVM Inscriptions hit a record $8.3 million.

Users started actively creating digital artifacts on the Ethereum network. According to Dune Analytics, more than 46 million EVM Inscriptions were minted between December 16 and 18.

EVM Inscriptions are analogous to Bitcoin Ordinals on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) networks. They are also digital artifacts, which can represent texts, images, videos, program code, and other data. The information is stored using calldata, a section of non-financial information present in any transaction on the Ethereum network. The first protocol to release EVM Inscriptions was Ethscriptions, which was launched on June 17, 2023.

The number of created “EVM Ordinals” peaked on December 7, when over 38 million digital artifacts were minted in a day alone. User activity provoked the growth of commission fees within the Ethereum network. On December 16, users spent a record $8.3 million on EVM Inscriptions. Over the past three days, the total transaction fees amounted to about $19.2 million.

The hype around “EVM Ordinals” triggered a number of failures in some L2 solutions operating in the Ethereum ecosystem. Specifically:

• The Arbitrum One network was completely suspended for 78 minutes on December 15 due to user activity on the MemeOrdi protocol that allows digital artifacts to be inscribed into transactions. The total gas volume rose to a record $2.1 million overnight.
• The Avalanche network saw the highest gas spend, more than $5.6 million on December 16 and about $15.3 million in the last three days.
• The Cronos blockchain network also experienced a temporary disruption due to higher gas fees. According to the network’s Managing Director Ken Timsit, the team was forced to roll out an update and activate dynamic transaction fees to cope with the increasing transaction volume.
• The Celestia modular network stopped relaying transactions correctly and was shut down completely.
• The zkSync Era network spent about $790,000 on EVM Inscriptions in the last three days, which is about 48% of all fees on the blockchain network.

Meanwhile, the popularity of Bitcoin digital artifacts continues to grow, despite reports that the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol may soon be discontinued. Amidst this backdrop, BTC transaction fees rose to $37.

According to an independent on-chain analyst, the capitalization of the most popular NFT collection Bitcoin Frogs Ordinals grew to $182 million, and the trading volume of its tokens surpassed the total volume of CryptoPunks, BAYC, MAYC, Pudgy Penguins, Azuki, DeGods, Moonbirds, Doodles, and Meebits. CryptoSlam! data shows that secondary sales of the collection increased by 283% in the last week.

The launch of Bitcoin Ordinals in January 2023 considerably increased the load on the Bitcoin network and provoked a rise in transaction fees.

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