Now even the government has identified the BRC-20 bug. In Bitcoin Core through 26.0 and Bitcoin Knots before 25.1.knots20231115, datacarrier size limits can be bypassed by obfuscating data as code (e.g., with OP_FALSE OP_IF), as exploited in the wild by Inscriptions in 2022 and 2023. Ordinals are now identified as a vulnerability
Bitcoin Core developer, Luke Dashjr, told his 83,300 followers in a recent tweet on X that inscriptions are exploiting a vulnerability in Bitcoin Core to spam the blockchain. Since 2013, Bitcoin Core allows users to set a limit on the size of extra data in transactions that they relay. Inscriptions bypass this limit and this makes them a “vulnerability.”
Dashjr says that Bitcoin Core is still vulnerable in the upcoming v26 release and the developer hopes to finally fix the issue before v27 next year. https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/bitcoin-core-developer-calls-ordinals-a-vulnerability-for-the-btc-blockchain-202312101100They are finally going to end this vulnerability! Integrating Ordinals into Bitcoin can be likened to the act of spraying neon graffiti on revered ancient monuments like the colosseum or the pyramids. These structures stand as architectural marvels and testaments of historical significance. Imagine them suddenly covered in flashy, modern neon spray paint.
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In a similar vein, the introduction of Ordinals into Bitcoin feels like a significant misstep. It disrespects and distorts the foundational principles of Bitcoin, turning a groundbreaking financial innovation into a cluttered display of digital extravagance. This transformation not only undermines the original vision of Bitcoin but also challenges the very essence of what made it a monumental breakthrough in the digital world. https://cointelegraph.com/news/ordinals-put-digital-graffiti-bitcoin-blockchainCoinTelegraph comes down hard on this vulnerability. Take a look at recent Bitcoin fees. Just passed an all-time high, since the BRC-20 bug was introduced. BRC-20 spammers were rushing to spam the network with @#$% pics before they were cut off, but the Ordinals.com website was spammed! Haha how ironic. Karma. |
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Well, we first need to get everyone to agree that we need to fix this oversight that is being exploited then begin arguing about the fix. Right now there are still people who either say "it will go away on its own" or claim "there should not be any fix at all".
Speaking of transaction fees, it now costs ~4x more to perform a Bitcoin transaction than Ethereum. Before, both were about the same. That seems to be the new average increase since this BRC-20 bug was introduced.  Source: YCHARTS |
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I hope everyone here agrees with me that writing Ordinals/BRC20 in the blockchain using JSON is a massive space monster. (You might also believe that Ordinals are negative in their entirety and should be removed. Well there's another thread on this board for saying that.) Lightning would be a nice way to solve this BRC-20 bug problem. I am in favor of moving these transactions off chain. I saw this article a few days ago. Unfortunately, wishing it onto the Lightning network won't make it happen. 1. The Lightning network has less than 5% of transactions, by volume. It's not being used. Moving this to Lightning would at best only solve 5% of the problem. 2. OP, but the problem, Ordinals/NFT users want to store their dick pics and fart sounds in a bank vault, not in a museum. They believe it's part of the attraction, and part of what makes them "more valuable". Wind FURY nailed it. This spam only has value because it is being immortalized in something valuable - the Bitcoin blockchain. Unfortunately, this is coming at the cost of Bitcoin's original purpose as a peer-to-peer method of exchange. It is destroying it's value. This bug is acting more like a parasite that is killing it's host. Lightning is not a real solution and this BRC-20 bug needs to be patched. |
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If Ethereum had a role that was to keep Bitcoin away from all the nonsense, since all the nonsense would be hosted on the so called Ethereum blockchain, now that isn't enough for them so they have to ruin Bitcoin by bringing the nonsense into the actual Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin Core should just block all this stuff, most nodes are Bitcoin Core nodes. Im not sure if Taproot was even needed. The more stuff you add the more window of opportunity for various blockchain spam use cases would show up, it's one of those things. Bitcoin already did what it had to do before any of that was implemented. As far as miners being happy because it raises fees, well, segwit lowered fees and it was rolled in.
Great point. I think the people who want to change the original use for Bitcoin into every other cryptocurrency are short sighted. Bitcoin is currently losing marketshare to Ethereum as institutions are withdrawing their money from the network, due to this change. If people no longer use Bitcoin, the value of that monkey pic in the blockchain will also go to zero. Pro-BRC-20 bug people can argue all they want in favor of this change, but it will not change the fact that BTC is losing marketshare. You can see this decline in how much it has declined in the last week vs Ethereum. Altcoins nearly always decline faster than Bitcoin as people move their funds to Bitcoin, as a safe haven - no longer. I've pulled nearly all of my investment out of Bitcoin until this bug gets fixed. No one is arguing that the primary use case for Bitcoin was a method of peer-to-peer exchange for the last 14 years. If you alter the original coin to devalue that primary use case, it becomes generic and it will fade away like thousands of cryptos that came after it. Changes to support its primary use case should always be encouraged. That's why Segwit was eventually adopted, because although it may have temporarily reduced miner's fees, it improved the primary use case, adoption and value of Bitcoin. There is obviously a major schism in the community, which I have not seen since Bitcoin Cash. I see this eventually resulting in a soft or hard fork. If the pro-BRC-20 bug people want to create monkey pics on a forked chain, that's fine with me. I do think the Devs read Bitcointalk and I think it's important to keep this thread alive. I hope they focus on their technical discussion, instead of disrupting it with spam. |
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I'm genuinely curious how Bitcoin will see global adoption in this case if 500k extra transactions are "hurting" the network that badly.
Excellent point! Can you imagine how much this spam is hurting El Salvador? Their minimum wage averages around $300/month. The BRC-20 transaction fee was >10% of what they earned in a month. This bug that was introduced a few months ago must be strangling global adoption of Bitcoin. Even the current fee is prohibitive. Anyone who was using Bitcoin in El Salvador must be switching to alternatives now. This argument really boils down to who will use Bitcoin? 1. A few elites who want to use Bitcoin to stick a $27,000 copy of a monkey picture in the blockchain 2. Everyone who wants to send a trustless, unrestricted, decentralized, peer-to-peer transaction, which Bitcoin has already served reliably as for over 14 years. not for people that don't like paying big fees. they just want fees to go back down to reasonable levels but the problem is there is nothing in the bitcoin protocol that defines what a reasonable fee is. it could be anything.
That's a great point. The fee is how Bitcoin controls what is "reasonable." Supply and demand increases this fee and limits how many people can send Bitcoin. This ordinals bug has artificially changed Bitcoin's purpose in support of a few moneyed individuals, eroding its original use case for the last 14 years. Demand will fall as people abandon Bitcoin in favor of other coins. Demand is falling... https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-outflows-poor-bitcoin-btc-sentiment-coinsharesCrypto sees 5th week of outflows on 'poor' BTC sentiment: Coinshares
Institutional investor sentiment over digital assets took another beating last week, with “poor sentiment” around Bitcoin leading to yet another week of outflows of digital asset investment products.
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Institutional BTC shedding
Butterfill noted that Bitcoin investment products have seen $112 million worth of outflows so far this year, with 90% of the sum coming in May alone, while short-Bitcoin products have seen $34.8 million worth of outflows over May.
Butterfill, however, noted that it is “unclear why there is such coordinated negative sentiment for both long and short investment products.” |
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Coindesk had a related article, based on all these overhyped, practically useless meme tokens that are clogging up networks: In S**tcoin Spring, any pointless cryptocurrency with a Twitter account can enchant thousands of traders into playing meme coin musical chairs. Throwing money at the wall and reason out the window, they let greed get the best of them. Sometimes literally.
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It’s a story that showcases the dark psyche encouraged by those one-off tales of meme coin riches. For every lucky speculator up 5,000,000% on pepecoin (PEPE), there are thousands of gamblers losing money to insiders and trading bots. Some fall for malicious tokens designed to steal all the money in their wallets, not just the poker chips they’d anted up.
GREED could have been one of those. To get GREED, over 43,000 Twitter accounts this week authorized one man in Croatia to tweet on their behalf. A further 55,306 wallets signed an intentionally sussy-looking transaction that, in theory, might have let him drain their wallets.
But the creator of the GREED experiment doesn’t plan to steal their money (nor can he; his developers never built that code). Even so, Ivor Ivosevic, better known as Voshy to the Solana community, very much will s**tpost from those Twitter accounts.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Voshy said he wants to teach crypto traders a lesson, one that focuses on internet security – with maybe a dash of morality and sensibility, too. The thing’s called GREED, after all.
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/05/15/greed-token-is-not-a-crypto-scam-but-a-lesson-on-how-to-get-scammed-amid-meme-coin-mania/ |
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Has any wallet company ever closed down before or experienced issue that affected holders Bitcoin?
Hah! Tons. This is why most hodlers long ago learned never to use centralized exchanges. Bitcoin is a trustless medium of exchange - why would you trust a third party to hold your coins? To name a few Mt. Gox, FTX have "lost"/stolen people's funds. Coinbase and Binance have both had periods where they held peoples' funds and delayed/prevented withdrawals. Rule of thumb: "Not your keys, not your coins." That means if you trust a third-party with your private Bitcoin wallet keys (or any other crypto), you no longer own those coins and have to trust that third party to A. never lose them B. Never steal them C. Never have them stolen. There are many ways to safeguard your coins and keep them yourself. Research them. |
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I don't understand this "censorship" argument. The ability to create BRC-20 tokens was recently added to Bitcoin's code by the developers.
And no doubt you'd then be calling for more intervention to censor that too. Where does it end? You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the word " censor" and "central authority" or else are throwing around harsh words to further your opinion to others. The well-being of Bitcoin's #1 use over the last 14 years and the trust that it has generated over that time as an always reliable method of peer-to-peer transactions, is under attack due to the spam these tokens have introduced. Let's both agree to disagree on how Bitcoin should be changed, going forward. The community will decide the consensus of how things should or should not be changed again. |
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Bitcoin loses trust if the developers move away from Satoshi's vision and try to haphazardly bolt on every new shiny object.
It could be argued that the vision was how no one would be in a position of power to intervene and prevent others transacting. But what you propose is that someone in power should intervene and prevent others from transacting. Now imagine I'm in charge of one of your nation's security agencies or the treasury/taxation authorities. In such a position, I wouldn't like how you're transacting without me knowing exactly who you are and what you are doing with your money. Maybe you're funding terrorists or failing to pay your taxes. How about I apply pressure to those same someones in power to prevent you from transacting in Bitcoin until you'll completed all the necessary KYC/AML and other privacy-crippling hurdles? Things go to dark places very quickly when you consider the implications of what it is you're asking for here. Censorship for some could easily escalate to censorship for all. Personally, I take the view that your ideals are far more dangerous to Bitcoin's longevity than a bit of short-term congestion. Bitcoin is neutral. That means sometimes people will use it in ways you may not agree with. But that's simply the price of freedom. I don't understand this "censorship" argument. The ability to create BRC-20 tokens was recently added to Bitcoin's code by the developers. This is "censoring" people's ability to perform peer-to-peer transactions efficiently, which was the founder's vision for Bitcoin and is its #1 utility. IMO and many others - this change was a mistake. Changing the code requires consensus among the community. You're trying to draw a parallel with central authority and quasi-democratic changes where there is none. Bitcoin's trustless peer-to-peer protocol inherently avoids KYC/AML requirements, unless people give up their keys/rights and move trust to a central authority. In no way am I advocating for that. If you want better privacy features at the expense of less fungiblity and a more bulky blockchain there is also Monero. |
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Hello everyone. I'm not an expert at all but did purchase about 0.7 BTC worth of ORDI earlier this week, so am very interested in this discussion. My initial reasoning for purchasing the coin on the ordinals website was that, finally, bitcoin was [now] going to throw off its shackles and [eventually] give many more people many more reasons to buy it; which would also mean that [eventually] there'd be many more people not buying ethereum. There is a clear and present danger that ethereum will usurp bitcoin as the number 1 coin, in terms of market cap. I am of the opinion that if this happens, bitcoin will slowly fade away into insignificance. I hope that I'm wrong about that, but my concerns about it meant that I was initially delighted to hear about brc-20/ordinals. I don't know if or how it can happen, but my opinion right now is that bitcoin developers must find ways to deflate the erc-20 bubble, or bitcoin will lose prominence at a rapid rate of knots. I don't believe that the original whitepaper for BTC should be left unchallenged and unchanged forever in the future, any more than the US constitution should be left unchallenged and unchanged forever [since the 1780s]. Not unless someone here believes that Jesus wrote that white paper.  I'm open to being ridiculed. I just want to learn and protect my investments. Thanks for reading. I hear your perspective. However, you have to see the big picture. Bitcoin drives the cryptocurrency market. It's held at least 40% of the market for nearly all of it's life. When things get bad - people flock to Bitcoin, because of it's ability to function as a peer-to-peer method of exchange. Bitcoin has something that no other coin has as much of - trust. That trust was founded, because it has worked as a trustless, peer-to-peer payment system for the last 14 years. Ordinals damage that ability. They are throwing shackles on - not taking them off. There are 1000s of other coins out there. Some of them have better features than Bitcoin. However, making a coin that specializes in everything means you have a coin that excels at nothing. Bitcoin operates using PoW. Few coins still have the ability to be supported by any computer in the world. It's already a more trusted platform than Ethereum 2.0, which uses PoS. ETH's PoS algorithm centralizes the network and will make it easier for the network to be hijacked, as its value increases. There are other smart contract coins that are much faster than Ethereum, less expensive, have fewer outages and may also offer NFTs - so what does Ethereum really offer? Bitcoin specializes in one thing. It makes sense it would need to adapt to become better at that specialization. But it does not make sense to try to offer something completely different that other coins already do better. As for changing the Constitution, the interest in Bitcoin is stronger today, because someone thought it would be a good idea to shackle people with a federal income tax (16th Amendment). Maybe it's a good idea to keep things the same? |
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This article summarizes the current situation nicely and introduces an additional regulatory concerns caused by BRC-20, which are little more than storing trash variables in the blockchain: The More Bitcoin Acts Like Ethereum, the Less Investors Should Like ItAre new NFTs and meme tokens good for Bitcoin?
When the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto published the original Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) white paper back in 2008, he envisioned the cryptocurrency as a peer-to-peer digital payments system and the ultimate form of "sound money." Some even imagined that one day, Bitcoin might replace the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency.
Flash-forward to 2023, and we're starting to see some unexpected innovations coming to Bitcoin's ecosystem that seem to contradict this original premise -- among them, highly speculative meme tokens and new non-fungible tokens (NFTs). What's concerning it that these innovations are leading to higher transaction fees, network congestion, and complaints about market disruptions. What's going on here, and what impact should it have on your decision to buy Bitcoin?
The "new" Bitcoin
Perhaps the easiest way to describe what's going on here is that it is a battle between the "old" Bitcoin and the "new" Bitcoin. The old Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency originally proposed by Nakamoto. The core purpose of its blockchain is to handle digital currency transactions. From this perspective, blocks on its blockchain should only contain transaction data -- nothing more. Proponents of the new Bitcoin, though, believe that the core Bitcoin blockchain should be used for more than just digital currency transactions. Why not the creation of NFTs or even meme tokens, such as those found on the Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) blockchain?
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Real-world impact
According to one blockchain analytics service, 65% of all Bitcoin transactions on May 7 were related to BRC-20 tokens. Put another way, 65% of the traffic on the Bitcoin blockchain this past Sunday involved people swapping in and out of meme tokens. Things got so out of hand, in fact, that Binance (CRYPTO: BNB) -- the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world --- had to put a temporary halt on Bitcoin withdrawals.
The important point here is that we are starting to see disruptions in the way Bitcoin is used, and these are causing higher fees and network congestion. In El Salvador, where Bitcoin is legal tender and used for everyday purchases, the transaction fees for withdrawing $100 in Bitcoin are now reportedly as high as $20. Think about that: If your bank charged you $20 every time you took $100 out of the ATM, you might start looking for a different bank.
Of course, the innovators who brought us Ordinals and the new BRC-20 tokens will describe how much functionality and utility they are bringing to Bitcoin. Perhaps they will tell you how they are helping Bitcoin reach wider mainstream adoption. And they will claim that they helped to create a billion-dollar market opportunity literally overnight. Fair enough.
But I can't help thinking about that 65% figure. Are two-thirds of Bitcoin transactions now just related to speculating in meme tokens? Please, nobody tell Gary Gensler this. As soon as the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman finds out that crypto enthusiasts have turned Bitcoin into a speculative meme-token playground, it's game over. And that's a primary concern of mine. How can anyone reasonably describe Bitcoin as "sound money" when people are playing with meme tokens in the background and inscribing funny pictures into its blockchain?
Should you invest in Bitcoin?
At one point, I thought the new NFTs might be a good thing for Bitcoin's future valuation. However, with the arrival of BRC-20 meme tokens, I've started to change my mind. Many of the most popular Bitcoin BRC-20 tokens are clearly designed to be meme tokens. The top tokens in this category by market cap now include a pizza-themed token, a frog-themed token, and a token that calls itself, yes, "meme." Now that larger, more mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges are starting to list these tokens for trading, this problem could get bigger as more people get in on the meme-token mania.
For now, I remain bullish on Bitcoin long term. But, in the short term, I'm taking a close look at what's happening with NFTs and meme tokens. If the primary purpose of Bitcoin -- to act as a peer-to-peer digital cash system -- is being hindered by high fees, congestion, and other forms of market friction, then it might be time to pump the brakes. If Bitcoin is trying so hard to become Ethereum, why not just invest in Ethereum?
I was nearly 100% into Bitcoin. I am divesting myself of my Bitcoin holdings, until this matter gets settled. I am sure I am not the only one. |
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We may not like "their" use case, but Bitcoin was designed to be permissionless and censorship-resistant. That means anyone can use it in the way they want as long as their use case is following the consensus rules. From a technical viewpoint, what changed?
From a technical viewpoint, Bitcoin's code was changed with the Taproot patch that moved Bitcoin away from being purely a peer-to-peer electronic payment system as Satoshi envisioned, to include the "latest thing". One of the developers referred to this as "security regression." This is not what Bitcoin was designed to be. Being permissionless and censorship resistant are features of this payment system. Now that payment system is being halted by a bug that was introduced. |
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Bitcoin loses trust if the developers move away from Satoshi's vision and try to haphazardly bolt on every new shiny object. Thanks for the link to the developers' thread. It looks like they are giving serious consideration to how to address this issue. The solution is not an easy one, because they have already introduced "security regression", as one developer put it, into the network. It is naive to think this will go away. If we wait on this issue and the value of Bitcoin is reduced to where people no longer have trust/buy it, the system could collapse as mining becomes unprofitable. We could have a Terra/Luna feedback death cycle. Also, at the current rate of transactions (600k / day), if a central government wanted to destroy trust in Bitcoin, spamming the mempool with a billion dollars in transactions could flood the system for about half a year - that's nothing to many governments. At the mining concerns, the price of Bitcoin will continue to increase to support the miners - as long as their is value in the system. That value is destroyed if the peer-to-peer payment system no longer works. That is a short-sighted view. What will the miners have to mine if their ASIC hardware is no longer worth anything? Rolling back Taproot is unlikely, but patching Bitcoin to remove the non peer-to-peer transactions needs to be deployed. The problem is so bad that I had a transaction stuck in unconfirmed status for over 4 hours yesterday, after paying the highest fee in my software. |
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Bitcoin was designed as a method for peer-to-peer exchanges (see quote from Satoshi in sig). It was not originally intended to support tokens or smart contracts.
Bitcoin has essentially become digital gold. These changes are breaking the network and eroding the years of trust that Bitcoin has created. This is what gives it value.
Bitcoin will never offer the transactions per second to support these type of transactions. There are many altcoins that do a better job of providing this utility. Let them do that.
The change to allow BRC-20 in Taproot needs to be rolled back. This is a dangerous, fatal flaw to the network that could be used to bring an end to Bitcoin.
What are your thoughts? Should BRC-20 be removed? What is the best way to do this?
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***SOLD***Proof picture
- $500 shipped (each) - 1/4oz Royal Mint Gold Britannia
- $2000 shipped - 1oz Royal Mint Gold BritanniaPayment in BTC only. Rate will be based on whatever the current conversion rate is at Coinbase at the time we make the deal. FREE Priority Mail shipping. Registered mail is optional @ $18 per $1000 and I will only ship on Saturday. Coins will be secured in Air-Tite containers before shipping, wrapped in bubble wrap and secured within the box. Boxes will be sealed with clear packaging tape. Once in the hands of USPS I take no responsibility for final delivery. Tracking numbers will be provided.
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I don't currently hold any Particl, but it looked like it was one of the best privacy coins available way back in 2017. Better than Monero? I am surprised it hasn't taken off more. It looks like you guys have been hard at work at also onboarding a decentralized exchange! Everything looks like a solid, polished, well-built platform. Props to you for all the hard work. Hope you find a way to put more into circulation, however I don't see anywhere to buy it? I dug deep into your FAQ on where to buy PART and the link is broken! How to buy needs to be front and center on your website, if you want to improve adoption. I like your mission statement and the idea of advertising, as well. |
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I would say that if you want to cover your traces then selling them through local bitcoins is easy though and there could be some Bitcoin ATM's that might not have cameras installed to have look upon you unlike the regular bank ATM which keeps you under full supervision.Selling them in person is also best as only buyer and seller knows each other regardless of any third party so this option also suits me.
If you’re selling it to a person you don’t really have full privacy because who you are selling it to knows you. And if you decide to make use of a Bitcoin ATM, and the ATM happens to have cameras that monitors users, then it’s also possible that you don’t have any privacy at all. So, I think the only platform here that is 100% anonymous when you are making use of it is localbitcoin.com, because with LocalBitcoin you just send to the buyer or to the seller and they don’t really know who you are, and before sending to them you just rely on the ratings and reviews that you have seen on their profile to do business with them. And your privacy will be maintained when you make use of this means. If selling to a person, technically you can consider that 100% anonymous. Even if they see you, they don't know who you really are. You could wear a disguise, if you are concerned the other party will somehow recognize you. This would be a good option if A. more people were willing to do it and B. there was a feedback system to reduce the risk of getting robbed/hurt/killed. LocalBitcoin now requires KYC to use, so it's not anonymous. Alternatives listed like LocalCryptos, LocalCoinSwap, LocalMonero, Agoratrader, etc. can be 100% anonymous, but only under certain conditions like mailing cash with a different or no return address. |
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Thanks for all the great suggestions! AgoraDesk looks very active. I updated the first post. Almost all fiat-to-BTC traders would require you to upload ID,even if they are using a platform like Bisq.
Trust is everything in this business.
This is not true at all. There are no id requirements for Bisq. Bisq locks the trader's funds and an additional deposit in a multi-signature wallet. It is nearly a trustless transaction. If they try to steal your money, you can submit the transaction to a Bisq third party moderator. The moderator volunteers their time and is paid by the platform. If the moderator determines the trader tried to steal from you, you receive your funds back and their deposit. The main trust required is in the open-source software itself. Biggest challenge with 100% Non-KYC is that generally at least 1 person knows who you are - the buyer. |
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