Good read. As a command-line only node runner I'd like to install spam filters but unfortunately the instructions are only for Umbrel which I don't use. Hope they add instructions for a bare bones linux installation of bitcoin core
Good analysis. Now we have runes and ordinals in addition to inscription, but the mempool fees are still manageable except for spikes.
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I think people who call ordinals a spam because it is "wasteful" and a "misuse" of the network are hypocrites. Those same people would vehemently defend Bitcoin against similar critique in terms of energy usage/"waste".
Value is subjective and your opinion does not matter, unless you're a market maker and contribute to the formation of the price signal.
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Inscriptions are spam because they impose negative externalities to node runners (bloated UTXO set full of dust, increased storage usage, increased IBD costs) and are designed to outbid financial transactions more valuable than them.
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bloated UTXO set full of dust
Like I said several times in other threads, if inscriptions are a problem for Bitcoin, then Bitcoin deserves to fail. If this is untenable, then how is a node going to handle "8 billion UTXOs for 8 billion people"?
increased storage usage, increased IBD costs
This is nonsense. The blockchain grows at a constant maximum pace determined by block frequency times max block size. It only grows slightly faster due to ordinals because they use more SegWit space, but there is a hard cap still. Whether these are financial transactions or inscriptions, if blocks are full, blocks are full.
outbid financial transactions more valuable than them
It's not yours or my place to say what transactions are valuable and which aren't. Bitcoin is a free market and inscribers are paying their due.
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if this is untenable, then how is a node going to handle "8 billion UTXOs for 8 billion people"?
It isn't. At least not and also allow common hardware node runners to participate. This is a real discussion that's out there. You should check out your local bitdevs you'll learn a lot.
So anyway that's why we look at L2s that allow for sharing a UTXO and use L1 to settle disputes over it. Under more drastic measures where the UTXO set really is just too large for common hardware... Some less than desirable solutions and who knows maybe a desirable solution one day will have to be performed to preserve decentralization.
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Like I said several times in other threads, if inscriptions are a problem for Bitcoin, then Bitcoin deserves to fail. If this is untenable, then how is a node going to handle "8 billion UTXOs for 8 billion people"
8 billion people are never going to fit in L1. Regardless of that inscriptions are not a problem because they can be unstandardized like many other kind of malicious transactions, but in order to not be a problem this has to be done at some point.
This is nonsense. The blockchain grows at a constant maximum pace determined by block frequency times max block size. It only grows slightly faster due to ordinals because they use more SegWit space, but there is a hard cap still. Whether these are financial transactions or inscriptions, if blocks are full, blocks are full.
The growth is bounded, but all things being equal if storage requirements grow faster than necessary (as it's happening since last February) there will be less archival nodes run by independent actors.
It's not yours or my place to say what transactions are valuable and which aren't. Bitcoin is a free market and inscribers are paying their due.
It's pretty objective. Spam spends $3-20 UTXOs and burns them all as miner fees. Regular transactions of the same size that try to conserve sats cannot compete in equal terms, but neither larger ones. E.g. A $50 transaction is not viable when spam is spending $5-10 and paying it all on fees.
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300 sats \ 0 replies \ @Muuny 4 Jan
I think people who call ordinals a spam because it is "wasteful" and a "misuse" of the network are hypocrites. Those same people would vehemently defend Bitcoin against similar critique in terms of energy usage/"waste".
Value is subjective and your opinion does not matter, unless you're a market maker and contribute to the formation of the price signal.
TFW a person wants the peer to peer monetary network, to be a file storage system for no reason.....
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The article concludes (among other things) that filtering the mempool of non-mining nodes is desirable, but I found no argument for why this is.
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nice!
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