What changed? Why #bitcoin ordinals went from 1 sat transactions to high fee transactions.
The key is understanding that what a maxi calls ordinals is 2 different things now and how they are different. First is NFTs, monkey jpgs inscribed on a sat. Second is Brc-20, tokens mined and tracked on the bitcoin blockchain by inscribing the smart contract info onto a sat.
NFTs started first. Because they store the entire jpg in the transaction you get high vbyte single transactions for each monkey or wizard or dickbutt they had an AI generate.
Brc-20 is this second wave we are seeing now. These are smart contract json data (text for the less technical) in OP returns describing a tokens characteristics, tokenomics and ownership and so on. The key here is that they are not premined. If every token of that specific Brc-20 isn't mined yet, you can mine them yourself by moving sats and inscribing them with the correct data.
The difference is that if I mint an NFT, I hold the jpg and I'm the only one trying to get that specific jpg into the chain. By definition each should be unique. Big transactions but no rush to get them into the chain because there is no competition to be the first to mint that specific jpg. So the first wave filled the mempool but 10sat/vbyte usually still got you in the next block.
Brc-20 tokens are entire token systems tracked on the bitcoin blockchain. If you really are only familiar with bitcoin you could think of them like sub tokens piggybacking on the bitcoin blockchain. They aren't unique like NFTs. Dozens or hundreds of people could be competing to mint every token before they are all minted. You could set up a mint with low fee and have every token minted by others who paid more TX fees before your transaction went through. Then you burned your TX fees for nothing. The frontrunner risk is new with Brc-20. This is why this second wave is lots of high TX fee but smaller vbyte transactions.
I found this info hard to find. Sorry for the long read if it is obvious to everyone else and I'm late to the game.
