Ordinals sends LTC and DOGE network activity surging for three straight weeks

What began with developer Casey Rodarmor creating the Ordinals protocol to “inscribe” text and imagery on the Bitcoin (BTC $26,842) network has now made its way to Litecoin (LTC $90.99) and Dogecoin (DOGE $0.07), sending transaction volume on thosechains surging for the better part of a month. 

Recent network activity on Litecoin and Dogecoin networks. Source: BitInfoCharts

On May 18, Dogecoin reached a new transaction volume record, with 1.2 million transactions in a single 24-hour period, according to data from BitInfoCharts. Similarly, on May 10, Litecoin reached its highest ever daily transaction volume with 584,000 transactions.

Ordinals first arrived on Litecoin after pseudonymous Twitter user Indigo Nakamoto offered 5 LTC — worth approximately $500 at the time — to anyone who could “port” the Ordinals protocol to the Litecoin network.

Some eight days later, on Feb. 19, software engineer Anthony Guerrera succeeded and launched the Litecoin Ordinals protocol. In a similar way, DOGE enthusiasts copied the Ordinals protocol to create the same functionality on Dogecoin, choosing to name the new protocol “Doginals”.

However, what really drove network activity on Litecoin and Dogecoin to new heights was the later introduction of the respective LRC-20 and DRC-20 token standards in early May, which allowed users to create and issue entirely new memecoins on the two networks.

The monumental influx of activity on LTC and DOGE came around the same time that the Ordinals inscription on the Bitcoin network went into overdrive, with a record 400,000 daily inscriptions on May 10.

Ordinals inscriptions on Bitcoin since December 2022. Source: Dune Analytics

The uptick in Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions can be directly attributed to the introduction of the BRC-20 token standard, which — according to data from Ordinals scanner brc-20.io — has seen more than 24,000 new tokens minted on the Bitcoin blockchain.