- About 42 GB of data was added to the network since the beginning of 2023.
- The transaction count has retreated from its ATH in May.
The size of Bitcoin [BTC] blockchain has increased substantially since the Ordinals frenzy took over the network in early 2023.
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As the number of Ordinals inscriptions surged, touching 12 million at the time of writing, there were concerns that the size would grow to the point where it would be difficult for new full node operators to store the copy of the ledger.
However, this skepticism has been put to rest. According to the on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, the blockchain size on 16 June was 488.9 GB with an average block size of 1.89 MB. This fell short of some of the earlier projections made of 525 GB and 500 GB.
Source: Glassnode
BTC network gets relief
A full node of Bitcoin stores the complete blockchain ledger locally. The growing size could be a concern because the full node will have to keep all transactions that have ever occurred on the ledger, increasing demand for hard disc capacity.
Digging deeper, it came to light that about 42 GB of data was added to the network since the beginning of 2023, marking an increase of more than 9% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis and a significant 18% from last year.
The current size of Bitcoin was between the projections of 2.35 MB and 1.35 MB blocks. According to Bitcoin explorer Mempool, the size of the last processed block was 1.93 MB. The number of pending transactions was still over 326,000, although considerably reduced from 400,000 during the network jamming phase in May.
Source: Mempool
Transaction count comes down from peak
Network traffic has cooled off significantly since the unprecedented surge in transactions in early May. The combined impact of falling volatility and the FUD around centralized exchanges could have contributed to the drop.
Source: Glassnode
As evident in the graph, the transaction count, and consequently the fees paid to validate these transactions, have retreated from the all-time highs (ATH). However, traffic remains higher than the 2022 bear market and comparable to levels experienced during June 2021.
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BTC climbed to a 10-day high of $26,702.37 at the time of writing, representing a 24-hour gain of 4.47%, according to CoinMarkerCap. The king coin made some progress over the last week, shrugging off the FUD triggered by U.S. regulators’ actions.