I made a little visualization about the size of ordinal inscription transactions, to be able to follow the evolution of their impact in the chain:
https://dune.com/d5k/ordinals-by-sizeFor now I made two graphs, one about the evolution of size categories, the other about total/average size of inscriptions.
I think it's too early to extract any trend, we're clearly still in the "novelty" phase where people are trying ou, and while the peak in the absolute number of digital artifact inscription transactions was on February 9, on Feb. 12 a new peak of "total size" was reached (~260 MB were inscribed that day, which is almost half of the total block capacity of 550-600 MB/day in optimal conditions). I'll be observing it and then draw my final conclusions. For now I don't think it will disrupt Bitcoin too much, although it is a bit annoying, and it should really move to an emptier chain, be it NMC, LTC, GRS, Datacoin (yeah, that also exists!) or whatever.
About illegal material: I've read there were already illegal pics and links stored in the blockchain, since 2013 or so:
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/03/27/child-porn-on-bitcoin-why-this-doesnt-mean-what-you-might-think/From the article:
Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan tweeted that the mainstream media's response to the report was "unsurprisingly superficial," adding, "First, the law is not an algorithm. Intent is an important factor in determining legality."
[...]
Plus, every U.S. state's handling of the disseminating of illicit material is different, but recalling Narayanan's sentiment, most laws hold people accountable only if they knowingly possess or produce, sell, broadcast or access the content with intent to view.