Bitcoin is money. But Bitcoin is also decentralized, persistent data storage. The current debate between Core and Knots is about the extent to which we should try to prevent using Bitcoin for data storage. Core's position seems to be that it's inevitable, and we should try to minimize the damages. Knot's position seems to be that we should do more to fight arbitrary data on Bitcoin.

There are many debates about this raging on the internet, including here on SN.

As I thought about this, I thought back to the analogy between gold and Bitcoin. "Bitcoin is digital gold," is how it's often described. Then I thought about all the ways gold was used, and it struck me that people have used gold for both monetary exchange and data storage / artistic expression since the dawn of human history.

For example, this image shows a gold tablet from Ancient Persia bearing an inscription about the rule of King Darius:

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apadana_hoard

People used gold to make statues and inscriptions because of gold's properties: it is one of the least reactive metals, and thus will persist over time.

So with that insight, should we not expect that people will want to use Bitcoin for artistic expression and data storage? The very properties that make gold and Bitcoin good money: immutable, persistent, etc, also make it highly sought after as a medium for data.

So if gold could, for millennia, simultaneously be used for monetary exchange and data storage, can't we expect the same of Bitcoin?