Marathon Mines Record-Breaking 4 MB Bitcoin Block Linked to Runestone Airdrop
During bitcoin’s extraordinary price peaks in March, this week saw the mining of the biggest block by byte size, with Marathon’s mining pool producing a 3.99 megabyte (MB) block. This block, labeled as 832,849, carried a message linked to the Runestone airdrop.
Bitcoin Blockchain Witnesses Unprecedented 4 MB Block
Over the recent weekend, Marathon, a publicly-listed mining company, mined the most sizable block by byte size ever recorded. The significant block, numbered 832,849, measured 3.99 MB, based on onchain data. Unlike the usual block, which typically contains more than 2,400 transactions, this one comprised only seven transactions. It was tied to the anticipated Runestone airdrop, an Ordinals project spearheaded by Leonidas, the host of The Ordinal Show.
On the social media platform X, Trevor, a co-host of The Ordinal Show, shared insights about the block. “It was actually worth waiting for Runestone to make the largest Bitcoin block in history w/ Marathon and Ordinalsbot,” Trevor said. “Just look how tightly this block is packed. A bigger block may not even ever be possible.”
The Ordinal Show co-host added:
[The] biggest Bitcoin block is a kind of provenance that transcends the Ordinals protocol.
The Bitcoin blockchain last documented a significant BTC block when the trend of Ordinals inscriptions began to attract attention in Feb. 2023. The Taproot Wizards produced a 3.96 MB block with an Ordinal inscription that displayed a wizard’s image, mined by Luxor. This particular inscription occupied 3.94 MB of space within the block. Following the mining of this block, the pace of creating Ordinal inscriptions accelerated significantly. By Mar. 4, 2024, the Bitcoin blockchain had amassed over 63 million inscriptions.
What do you think about the giant block mined by Marathon? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.