<\/p>\n
Inscriptions drove record throughput of roughly 60 TPS over 24 hours on ZkSync Era and Arbitrum<\/p>\n
Inscriptions continue to stress-test Ethereum\u2019s Layer 2 ecosystem, with the upstart network Mantle, becoming the latest chain to rival the Ethereum mainnet by throughput amid a flurry of inscription activity.<\/p>\n
Data from L2beat shows Mantle\u2019s daily throughput rocketing to 14 transactions per second (TPS) on Dec. 20, compared to 14.4 TPS on Ethereum. The surge beat out Mantle\u2019s previous throughput record by more than triple and comprised a daily uptick of 543%.<\/p>\n
Mantle tweeted<\/a> that its network reached peak intraday throughput of 200 TPS amid the surge in transaction volume without suffering any downtime.<\/p>\n \u201cMantle Network recorded a spike in on-chain activity due to a surge in inscriptions,\u201d Mantle said. \u201cSequencer, DA, and explorer fully operational and stable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, Mantle\u2019s inscription party appears to have been short-lived, with daily throughput crashing to just 3 TPS the following day.<\/p>\n Mantle is currently readying to introduce<\/a> native yield for bridged ETH and stablecoins, inspired by the recent success of Blast<\/a> \u2014 a forthcoming L2 offering yield via Lido and MakerDAO on deposits.<\/p>\n Inscriptions have exploded in popularity across new networks over the past two months, with developers deploying inscription protocols<\/a> on chains supporting Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) smart contracts.<\/p>\n Ordinal inscriptions were pioneered on Bitcoin as a method for creating NFT-like assets without smart contracts in January. Two months later, a pseudonymous developer introduced the BRC-20 standard for creating fungible tokens on the network.<\/p>\n While inscription tokens fell out of fashion in Q3 following an initial speculative frenzy, the sector roared back to contention in the fourth quarter \u2014 inspiring developers to launch inscription tokens on new networks.<\/p>\n Proponents argue that inscriptions offer several arguable benefits over NFTs. Inscriptions are created by inscribing data to the smallest denomination of a network token (i.e. Bitcoin satoshis) rather than through smart contracts, meaning token issuers cannot reserve a significant share of supply for themselves. The lack of smart contract execution also means the tokens theoretically offer reduced transaction fees as transactions comprise simple token transfers, but inhibits the composability of inscriptions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Start for free<\/a><\/div>\n <\/p>\n However, fierce competition to mint inscription tokens has driven massive spikes in transaction fees on networks recently onboarding inscription protocols. Fees have recently spiked by thousands of percent on Near, Fantom, and Polygon, while Arbitrum, ZkSync Era, Avalanche, Cronos,The Open Network,<\/a> andCelestia have suffered outages and congestion amid skyrocketing inscription transactions.<\/p>\n Bitcoin congestion is up more than 52% in two weeks as inscription activity swelled, with 345,000<\/a> transactions currently sitting unconfirmed in Bitcoin\u2019s mempool.<\/p>\n ZkSync Era and Arbitrum both suffered downtime due to skyrocketing inscription activity on Dec. 16, posting record daily throughput of 62 TPS and 59 TPS respectively. For comparison, the Ethereum mainnet processed just 12.2 TPS on average.<\/p>\n ZkSync posted a post-mortem on Dec. 19, noting that the network consistently handled 150 TPS<\/a> over a roughly 14-hour period, pushing transaction fees up to $0.12 on average. Users were unable to submit transactions for around 15 minutes amid a database upgrade, while some wallet providers, external RPC endpoints, and the network\u2019s blockchain explorer also experienced issues as they struggled to keep up with the enormous volume of transactions.<\/p>\nInscriptions spread onto new networks<\/h2>\n
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Inscriptions stress-test Layer 2s<\/h2>\n