On relay policy and recent OP_RETURN drama - Antoine Poinsot \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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On relay policy and recent OP_RETURN drama - Antoine Poinsot antoinep.com/posts/relay_policy_drama/

2442 sats \ 12 comments \ @k00b 1 May bitcoin

A sober take on all the OP_RETURN drama.

192 sats \ 6 replies \ @SimpleStacker 1 May

The one thing I'm not really seeing in this article is what the benefit of expanding OP_RETURN limits are.

If people storing data in the witness script can do it more cheaply than having the data in OP_RETURN, why wouldn't they just continue to do that?

Many have taken the opportunity of my proposal to grandstand on Twitter. They exploit gullible people by making wild claims about OP_RETURN outputs being an existential threat to Bitcoin. I hope my post made it clear it is not, but consider also this. If Bitcoin was so brittle that Core choosing to relay perfectly safe, inexpensive to validate, consensus-valid transactions would break it, it would be utterly uninteresting in the first place!

The ability of this parasitical group to reach this level of attention is really telling of what our community values. I hope bitcoiners start demonstrating more critical thinking and stop giving in to the latest conspiracy theory every 6 months.

Woof.

666 sats \ 3 replies \ @petertodd 1 May

The article explains the reason here:

It was recently brought to my attention that Citrea faced this situation with their Clementine bridge. In their construction, a watchtower challenge transaction needs to both pass on 144 bytes of data and be confirmed as soon as possible. Since they are restricted to a single 80 bytes OP_RETURN output by Bitcoin Core standardness, they use two unspendable Taproot outputs to include the other 64 bytes of data.

We're removing this limit rather than just raising it because we don't want to have to have this ridiculous discussion every time someone finds a new reason to use a little more.

51 sats \ 0 replies \ @django 20h

No Peter, this isn't valid reason. Critea is ZK rollup, aka they work on using bitcoin as data layer. Even just one glance at their main slogan "making it possible to build everything on Bitcoin" tells you just as much. The people who oppose relaxing op code limits are against this very idea and want bitcoin to be used purely as monetary system. They are justified with this example -- this is EXACTLY what they don't want.

Personally, I don't really have a strict opinion on this matter if I am honest, although I do observe what's happening to Ethereum, which not long ago advertised itself as "world's decentralised computer" (again, aka blockchain used for data). What bothers me though, how the bitcoin core devs are dealing with this drama (which stirs more drama). Even Antoine in the original article calls them "parasitic" ffs.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 1 May

Makes sense, thanks

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @pycan 10h

Why would we want to accommodate one company's needs on the blockchain level?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @endothermicdev 10h

If people storing data in the witness script can do it more cheaply than having the data in OP_RETURN, why wouldn't they just continue to do that?

I would refer to Sjor's reasoning

I'm simplifying terribly, but I think the general issue is that putting the data in the witness makes syncing and validating the chain harder for future and current node operators. Validating each transaction requires checking it against all unspent transaction outputs from the entire blockchain (utxo set.) These have to be kept in memory by the nodes forever. If you can avoid having every node add to this with something that's in fact unspendable and only meant to record data, it makes validation quicker and nodes are cheaper to operate. It's a tragedy of the commons situation. Obviously the utxo set is going to grow regardless, but we might as well not encourage it to get worse by needlessly adding outputs that can never be removed.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OneOneSeven 1 May

Yeah this is a question Ive had as well.

33 sats \ 1 reply \ @OneOneSeven 1 May

I've been trying to read up this week and understand this debate with my limited brain cells.

Feels like a perfect time for SN to be the hub of debates like this, between the moderation on Github that people complain about and the general chaos of trying to follow a story on X or Nostr.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 2 May

pay2post increases the signal to noise ratio big time. always has

132 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 1 May

fuck the debates. I've set my OP_RETURN size to 0 because my node is for monetary transactions only. period.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @02e577ef9e 21h freebie

I hate these people.

"Citrea is the first rollup that enhances the capabilities of Bitcoin blockspace with zero-knowledge technology, making it possible to build everything on Bitcoin."

https://citrea.xyz/

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled 1 May

Thanks for sharing 👀