NFTs in the Bitcoin blockchain - Ordinal Theory

[n0nce]

This is a very valid point and this in itself could be a major driver that leads to the censorship of Bitcoin globally once bad actors begin to utilize ordinal inscriptions for this purpose.

No, I don't think so. Bitcoin has been subjected as money laundering tool, criminal money, ponzi / pyramid / whatever, etc., and against all odds it's more powerful than ever. Banning Bitcoin doesn't even pass the laugh test anymore. Secondly, you could always store illegal content on-chain, Ordinals could always be implemented. It isn't a brand new feature.

Does this mean that we should do everything that is technically possible, though? Or that because something was always possible, it is automatically good / right?

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[pooya87]

Does this mean that we should do everything that is technically possible, though? Or that because something was always possible, it is automatically good / right?

That's the real question.
I'd say we should continue fighting to keep the network healthy. Whether it is to protect it against hostile takeovers or bsv and bcash like attacks or spam attacks. It definitely won't stay healthy on its own if we ignore it.

[Wind_FURY]

Does this mean that we should do everything that is technically possible, though? Or that because something was always possible, it is automatically good / right?

That's the real question.
I'd say we should continue fighting to keep the network healthy. Whether it is to protect it against hostile takeovers or bsv and bcash like attacks or spam attacks. It definitely won't stay healthy on its own if we ignore it.

Plus spamming as a network attack to cause for fees to surge would discourage the use for Bitcoin's actual utility that could cause the weakening/breaking-down of political strongholds, and that's a permissionless, censorship-resistant network for hard money.

The "spam" won't be just a another costly attack anymore, it's actually incentivized spamming because the attackers will get some profit from those people who actually value dick pics and fart sounds in the blockchain.

[BenCodie]

This is a very valid point and this in itself could be a major driver that leads to the censorship of Bitcoin globally once bad actors begin to utilize ordinal inscriptions for this purpose.

No, I don't think so. Bitcoin has been subjected as money laundering tool, criminal money, ponzi / pyramid / whatever, etc., and against all odds it's more powerful than ever. Banning Bitcoin doesn't even pass the laugh test anymore. Secondly, you could always store illegal content on-chain, Ordinals could always be implemented. It isn't a brand new feature..

It can at least lead to every single node operator being vulnerable to being framed for supporting illegal data, because these things are not as complex as financial crime. It is black and white as to whether or not you are downloading this data via your full node.

Don't you think server operators will be more likely to ban Bitcoin now that this kind of data could be flowing over their network as well?

There are a lot of new temporary complications that could arise and could hurt BTC from Ordinals...not to mention that it was introduced after inception by 15 years. Imagine the feedback to developers if this potential issue explodes into headlines or in the ears of the adversary?

No, these things won't kill it, but it sure as hell will hurt it...right at a time when Bitcoin is mostly getting over the "financial crime" slander that has been thrown at it since its infancy. I think people understand that part of it can't be controlled and that it's by-nature that Bitcoin is financial sovereignty for better and for worse...are BTC devs really trying to claim the title "Bitcoin is also Art, for better and for worse" at this point in time? The battle that Bitcoin was supposed to be fighting since its inception is not even over yet.

I'm blaming the miners. Seems that they will benefit the most from this whether it hurts bitcoin or doesn't. They'd be fully aware of the potential pitfalls too.

I feel that Ordinals were a big mistake. I see the point in NFTs on chains like Ethereum, where the media isn't actually written to the chain but rather the rights to it are.

Rights according to the community. There's absolutely no legislation that treats hashes of images of rocks as property. Also, whatever bad happens to Ethereum, we know they'll tackle it with a hard fork. It is not censorship resistant.

Yes, there is a cross-roads when someone creates an NFT of someone else's off-chain creation and claims it as their own. That is a copyright issue. That's not at all what I'm referring to when I talk about rights.

When you mint an original NFT with an original creation, it does not matter who mints the same/duplicate NFT after you. The blockchain has written that you were the first to create this content (at least on the blockchain) and from that point forward, the rights to the creation are transfer-able on-chain and all NFTs that try to copy your original will be verifiably useless/fakes.

Rights also have nothing to do with the community either. Rights are strictly between the creator and the blockchain (when the creation is original, as described above).

[vjudeu]

Currently, it is possible to spam the blockchain by using "OP_FALSE OP_IF <anything> OP_ENDIF". All nodes have to store that kind of scripts. It is possible to filter some transactions on mempool level, however, that kind of filtering can be avoided by relaying spammy transactions directly to the miners.

In practice, those kind of scripts are just huge OP_NOPs. Because of that, I started to think if we could somehow prune it. Of course, in case of upgrading the Script, it is possible to choose a format, where such opcodes will cancel out, and could be taken out of the Script, without invalidating signatures. But when it comes to what we have today, the whole script is needed, because it is checked when validating transaction hash, and current signatures are based on those hashes.

However, when we consider hashing any data, typical hash functions like SHA-256 are based on splitting the message into smaller chunks, and processing them linearly, one-by-one. And here comes some room for improvement: optional pruning of chunks in the middle, while keeping the first and the last chunk. Also, in a typical hash function, the last chunk contains the size of the message, so it can be also used to check if provided full message has enough chunks in the middle.

So, if that spam will keep growing, I think about going into semi-pruned mode: not switching from witness to non-witness mode (because requirements for OP_RETURN can be also lifted, and because then additional witness verification is needed), but pruning large OP_NOPs instead, while preserving internal state of SHA-256 after the first chunk, and before the last chunk.

[DaCryptoRaccoon]

Currently, it is possible to spam the blockchain by using "OP_FALSE OP_IF <anything> OP_ENDIF". All nodes have to store that kind of scripts. It is possible to filter some transactions on mempool level, however, that kind of filtering can be avoided by relaying spammy transactions directly to the miners.

In practice, those kind of scripts are just huge OP_NOPs. Because of that, I started to think if we could somehow prune it. Of course, in case of upgrading the Script, it is possible to choose a format, where such opcodes will cancel out, and could be taken out of the Script, without invalidating signatures. But when it comes to what we have today, the whole script is needed, because it is checked when validating transaction hash, and current signatures are based on those hashes.

However, when we consider hashing any data, typical hash functions like SHA-256 are based on splitting the message into smaller chunks, and processing them linearly, one-by-one. And here comes some room for improvement: optional pruning of chunks in the middle, while keeping the first and the last chunk. Also, in a typical hash function, the last chunk contains the size of the message, so it can be also used to check if provided full message has enough chunks in the middle.

So, if that spam will keep growing, I think about going into semi-pruned mode: not switching from witness to non-witness mode (because requirements for OP_RETURN can be also lifted, and because then additional witness verification is needed), but pruning large OP_NOPs instead, while preserving internal state of SHA-256 after the first chunk, and before the last chunk.

I think this filtering is a great idea, overall I still think the main focus should be sound money over jpeg scams that do nothing for us as sound money.

Fee market or not. Don't follow the pack... Be a leader.

[kano]

Well since I first noticed this discussion elsewhere, I thought I'd quote my post here as well

Well with the bitcoin blockchain now filled with this trash over the last couple of weeks, I had a thought about it

NFTs can be on multiple chains.

Thus the original one would have to be the one that has the earliest 'block' time on any chain.
Alas you can fake the block time ...

You'd simply have to watch for a new NFT on bitcoin, then mine it into a scamcoin chain and timestamp the scamcoin block earlier than the bitcoin block ...

... and of course someone could do the opposite and mine it into a bitcoin block not long after the original scamcoin block then claim it was stolen by the scamcoin chain.

Fun.

[pooya87]

Thus the original one would have to be the one that has the earliest 'block' time on any chain.
Alas you can fake the block time ...

You'd simply have to watch for a new NFT on bitcoin, then mine it into a scamcoin chain and timestamp the scamcoin block earlier than the bitcoin block ...

Your statements are based on the false assumption that people care about uniqueness of a token they buy (they don't even care about their utility). People who buy tokens are buying them to make profit from their pump, wishful thinking of course but they don't care if the duplicate of the same thing existed in the same chain let alone existing on another as long as that little hope for profit exited.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Does this mean that we should do everything that is technically possible, though?

"Should" is a strong word. I'm of the opinion that if we've reached consensus for something to be possible and valid, we shouldn't intervene and introduce sorts of censorship, because there is no other manner to intervene. You either dictate what users can do with their money or you don't. But "should"? No, in my opinion. We shouldn't spend money on trash, individually, sure, but we shouldn't introduce censorship to accomplish that collectively.

Plus spamming as a network attack to cause for fees to surge would discourage the use for Bitcoin's actual utility that could cause the weakening/breaking-down of political strongholds, and that's a permissionless, censorship-resistant network for hard money.

Unfortunately, from a technical perspective, every transaction moving money is a currency transaction. If you decide to call one type of transaction non-currency, you introduce censorship.

It can at least lead to every single node operator being vulnerable to being framed for supporting illegal data, because these things are not as complex as financial crime.

Maybe it is. Maybe downloading blocks of illegal content makes you a criminal. But maybe treating an entire peer-to-peer network as illegal because some decide to use it for illegal purposes is a flawed argument to begin with. No user running a full node should be considered involved into this, just as no Tor user should be considered partner with someone, just because he routed illegal information without him knowing. Just as a miner approving a transaction without being aware it's an illegal one. Full nodes don't advertise themselves as porn sites, so they shouldn't be treated as illicit.

And besides that, what would the introduction of censorship do to avoid this? As far as I can tell, nothing. Saying that "you can't do this kind of transactions", because a few use it for illicit purpose, doesn't mean those few won't find another way to accomplish it indirectly, again on-chain.

I'm blaming the miners. Seems that they will benefit the most from this whether it hurts bitcoin or doesn't. They'd be fully aware of the potential pitfalls too.

Blaming the miners for what? Following profit?

When you mint an original NFT with an original creation, it does not matter who mints the same/duplicate NFT after you. The blockchain has written that you were the first to create this content (at least on the blockchain) and from that point forward, the rights to the creation are transfer-able on-chain and all NFTs that try to copy your original will be verifiably useless/fakes.

And I'm just saying that the "rights" don't belong to you by the law. You can create an image, have the copyright, but no laws describe transfer of ownership via blockchain. So it's essentially unofficial rights, AKA community rights.

[Wind_FURY]

Thus the original one would have to be the one that has the earliest 'block' time on any chain.
Alas you can fake the block time ...

You'd simply have to watch for a new NFT on bitcoin, then mine it into a scamcoin chain and timestamp the scamcoin block earlier than the bitcoin block ...

Your statements are based on the false assumption that people care about uniqueness of a token they buy (they don't even care about their utility). People who buy tokens are buying them to make profit from their pump, wishful thinking of course but they don't care if the duplicate of the same thing existed in the same chain let alone existing on another as long as that little hope for profit exited.

But "they care". They care that it will have more value than the value they have bought it for. Greed is what makes the market work, with each person incentivized by their actions, whether buying or selling. I'm not debating you, I'm merely telling you, and actually everyone, that perhaps we shouldn't miscalculate the present situation. Plus I can't prove it, but I believe there are "Bitcoiners", who want to see it fail. Their statements are made because of their "Anti-Maximalist" motivations, not necessarily they truly believe that Ordinals is a net-positive for the network. They might have fell from the path, and lost it.

[n0nce]

I'm blaming the miners. Seems that they will benefit the most from this whether it hurts bitcoin or doesn't. They'd be fully aware of the potential pitfalls too.

We can't and shouldn't demand for miners to control the type of data stored on-chain / to censor anything. It is their job to just mine blocks and nothing more or less than that.
Also, blaming anyone doesn't help us right now. We should think about solutions, instead.

Does this mean that we should do everything that is technically possible, though?

"Should" is a strong word. I'm of the opinion that if we've reached consensus for something to be possible and valid, we shouldn't intervene and introduce sorts of censorship, because there is no other manner to intervene. You either dictate what users can do with their money or you don't. But "should"? No, in my opinion. We shouldn't spend money on trash, individually, sure, but we shouldn't introduce censorship to accomplish that collectively.

Interesting opinion. I personally believe people should be allowed to spend their money on whatever they like, too, as long as they are not spending their money to (figuratively) throw trash into my back yard.
This principle also makes more sense if you broaden it to 'freedom'. Absolute freedom, where everyone is allowed to do anything they want, is a pretty bad idea, because they will be allowed to kill you without repercussions. Freedom should stop wherever it inhibits someone else's freedom. Likewise, I think the 'freedom to use the Bitcoin blockchain / script' should stop wherever it starts inhibiting the original purpose and usability of Bitcoin.

Unfortunately, from a technical perspective, every transaction moving money is a currency transaction. If you decide to call one type of transaction non-currency, you introduce censorship.

Is that so? https://monerodocs.org/ Only monetary transactions are possible. Technically possible.

But maybe treating an entire peer-to-peer network as illegal because some decide to use it for illegal purposes is a flawed argument to begin with.

That's not the point, though. As soon as you possess and distribute illegal content, you can and should be liable for that. No matter if your node actually part of an awesome decentralized digital currency. It's not about the node or the network, it's about the fact that those bytes are on your disk and you are even distributing them to others.

Just as no Tor user should be considered partner with someone, just because he routed illegal information without him knowing.

That's different. In Tor, you never see the cleartext data (it is encrypted in at least one, usually more, layers of encryption), and you don't store it permanently, either. You could be liable for aiding in the distribution of certain materials, but that can be definitely debated in court since you shouldn't be punished (at least not to the full scale) if you don't know about the file contents.

Just as a miner approving a transaction without being aware it's an illegal one.

Since the data is not encrypted and decoding software ('Ordinals project') exists and is freely accessible, it is not compared to the encrypted Tor data. In most countries, 'Ignorantia legis non excusat' is part of the law. 'Unaware' of the data is very much different to 'unable' to know the transmitted data. And, again, data storage.

And I'm just saying that the "rights" don't belong to you by the law. You can create an image, have the copyright, but no laws describe transfer of ownership via blockchain. So it's essentially unofficial rights, AKA community rights.

That's correct. This is what makes NFTs so useless. Not only don't they stop anyone from downloading your NFT picture, you will also have a very hard time trying to use that NFT as a legal document in court, if you try to sue that person.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Absolute freedom

But my opinion isn't in favor of "absolute freedom" in which there is freedom to intervene into other people's freedom.

I personally believe people should be allowed to spend their money on whatever they like, too, as long as they are not spending their money to (figuratively) throw trash into my back yard.

What's trash for you isn't necessarily for everyone else. As long as they pay for their "trash", I don't have a problem. The network can handle any amount of trash as long as the sender pays for it. Again, I'm not in favor of absolute freedom, but of the freedom to spend your money in whatever manner you want.

Likewise, I think the 'freedom to use the Bitcoin blockchain / script' should stop wherever it starts inhibiting the original purpose and usability of Bitcoin.

The original purpose is, in my opinion, subjective, and so is this Ordinal thing. Someone might argue those NFTs are part of the Bitcoin economy, and they'll be right in some way. However, what's unquestionably true is that one principle of the Bitcoin network; censorship resistance, which is in question if you start preventing these transactions.

Is that so? https://monerodocs.org/ Only monetary transactions are possible. Technically possible.

I don't understand what's this. Monero documentation? How's that related?


As for the storing and distribution of illegal data: I'm not a lawyer, so I can't make a point.

[n0nce]

I personally believe people should be allowed to spend their money on whatever they like, too, as long as they are not spending their money to (figuratively) throw trash into my back yard.

What's trash for you isn't necessarily for everyone else. As long as they pay for their "trash", I don't have a problem.

I just don't see why they can't buy themselves a landfill and store their trash there (or a garden, if they insist on storing trash in the wrong location), instead of paying someone to store it in that person's back yard.

The network can handle any amount of trash as long as the sender pays for it. Again, I'm not in favor of absolute freedom, but of the freedom to spend your money in whatever manner you want.

What if I decide to write a script and spend a few BTC to just send transactions between 2 wallets of mine at 1000sat/vB and render Bitcoin unusable (without paying more than 1000sat/vB to send a transaction)?
I think we should try to secure Bitcoin against attacks of any kind, if they are objectively harming the blockchain and potentially put it at risk legally (arbitrary data storage...).

The original purpose is, in my opinion, subjective

It's actually not. The purpose is p2p electronic payments.

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main
benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.
We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.
The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of
hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing
the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of
events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As
long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to
attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The
network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort
basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest
proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

Fun fact: There is 1 mention of the word 'free' and 0 mentions of the word 'freedom' in that paper. It is obvious that Bitcoin is 'freedom money' through the way it was designed, but I just find it funny how it's been spun into 'freedom network', 'it is all about freedom' or similar terms, when they have not even been used by Satoshi.

Is that so? https://monerodocs.org/ Only monetary transactions are possible. Technically possible.

I don't understand what's this. Monero documentation? How's that related?

It shows you can technically have a cryptocurrency that only allows payments.

As for the storing and distribution of illegal data: I'm not a lawyer, so I can't make a point.

We can ask in Legal section maybe. To reduce emotional responses, we could focus on copyrighted material. Not NFTs, but legitimately protected digital materials like certain movies or pictures. What if someone pays an astronomical amount of money to store a full movie on the Blockchain using Ordinals or some other system. We will all become illegal owners and distributors of the movie. I'd assume that laws are quite clear about that.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I just don't see why they can't buy themselves a landfill and store their trash there (or a garden, if they insist on storing trash in the wrong location), instead of paying someone to store it in that person's back yard.

I neither recognize reasons to tossing coins to fountains, paying astronomical amounts in fees, using legacy etc., but I'm not going to force them do it in my way. If someone's dumb, I'm going to respect that.  

What if I decide to write a script and spend a few BTC to just send transactions between 2 wallets of mine at 1000sat/vB and render Bitcoin unusable (without paying more than 1000sat/vB to send a transaction)?

What do you suggest to happen in that scenario? Censor those?

I think we should try to secure Bitcoin against attacks of any kind, if they are objectively harming the blockchain and potentially put it at risk legally (arbitrary data storage...).

They don't harm it objectively. They just take up space and some argue that doesn't help on adoption (which I don't completely agree with, as they do portrait bitcoin in some dumb manner). But in the end, they do pay for those transactions, and since they're completely valid, they deserve a place there.

It's actually not. The purpose is p2p electronic payments.

And, apparently, some use NFTs for payments[1], which I agree is a dumb method, but there it is. NFT is money; for dumb people, but it is.

Fun fact: There is 1 mention of the word 'free' and 0 mentions of the word 'freedom' in that paper. It is obvious that Bitcoin is 'freedom money' through the way it was designed, but I just find it funny how it's been spun into 'freedom network', 'it is all about freedom' or similar terms, when they have not even been used by Satoshi.

Satoshi is no God, though, no matter how some see Bitcoin as a religion. Free market defines Bitcoin, not Satoshi. I think it's pretty obvious that it's a freedom network.

[1] https://oveit.com/blog/2022/10/28/using-nfts-as-payment-tools/

[tromp]

Is that so? https://monerodocs.org/ Only monetary transactions are possible. Technically possible.

Monero allows embedding of arbitrary data (aka spam), though only a small fraction of transaction size.

Besides the 32-byte tx_extra field you can also put arbitrary data into each output stealth address (making it unspendable as a side effect).
Since each output must be accompanied by a rangeproof of 416 bytes for Bulletproof++, this amounts to about 7% of spam, but this percentage would increase by a lot if you aggregate all the rangeproofs of many outputs into one that's only logarithmically bigger.

The most spam resistant chain is probably Grin, allowing only a few bytes of spam [1].

[1] https://forum.grin.mw/t/ordinals-on-grin/10336/2

[n0nce]

Is that so? https://monerodocs.org/ Only monetary transactions are possible. Technically possible.

Monero allows embedding of arbitrary data (aka spam), though only a small fraction of transaction size.

Besides the 32-byte tx_extra field you can also put arbitrary data into each output stealth address (making it unspendable as a side effect).
Since each output must be accompanied by a rangeproof of 416 bytes for Bulletproof++, this amounts to about 7% of spam, but this percentage would increase if you aggregate all the rangeproofs of many outputs into one that's only logarithmically bigger.

The most spam resistant chain is probably Grin, allowing only a few percent of spam [1].

[1] https://forum.grin.mw/t/ordinals-on-grin/10336

Sure; then I will correct myself: possible, but much less data per tx is possible, making it less suited as a means of data storage and discouraging abuse of a P2P electronic cash system as cloud storage.

Good to hear that Grin is suited even worse for Ordinals! That again proves how you often get (more or less) 'transactions only' for free when you work on on-chain privacy ^[1], which I also stated in this or the other thread, earlier. And that it is possible to discourage misuse of a cryptocurrency without censoring individual transactions.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5410526.0

What if I decide to write a script and spend a few BTC to just send transactions between 2 wallets of mine at 1000sat/vB and render Bitcoin unusable (without paying more than 1000sat/vB to send a transaction)?

What do you suggest to happen in that scenario? Censor those?

I don't think we have a protection against that, either. Much harder problem than here, since those would be 'legitimate' regular transactions.
Just saying that there are ways to attack Bitcoin and if there are easy mitigations that still allow us to have full freedom in its usage as a payment system, they should be considered.

I think we should try to secure Bitcoin against attacks of any kind, if they are objectively harming the blockchain and potentially put it at risk legally (arbitrary data storage...).

They don't harm it objectively. They just take up space and some argue that doesn't help on adoption (which I don't completely agree with, as they do portrait bitcoin in some dumb manner). But in the end, they do pay for those transactions, and since they're completely valid, they deserve a place there.

My main issue is storing and distributing other people's data, to be honest. If a random person hands me a hard drive with copyrighted movies and asks me to put that data on my webserver, I will kindly decline.

It's actually not. The purpose is p2p electronic payments.

And, apparently, some use NFTs for payments[1], which I agree is a dumb method, but there it is. NFT is money; for dumb people, but it is.

That's like blowing up your car engine, removing it and putting a few dogs in the front to pull the car. It may get you to your destination, but it's sure as hell not the best nor the intended way. And you still damaged the car in the process.

Satoshi is no God, though, no matter how some see Bitcoin as a religion. Free market defines Bitcoin, not Satoshi. I think it's pretty obvious that it's a freedom network.

Freedom payment network. Small syntactic difference, big semantic difference. I don't think I need to elaborate why.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I don't think we have a protection against that, either. Much harder problem than here, since those would be 'legitimate' regular transactions.

My point is that if protocol defines "legitimacy", Ordinals and millions-in-fees transactions are legitimate. If someone pays for the damage, it's acceptable.

Just saying that there are ways to attack Bitcoin and if there are easy mitigations that still allow us to have full freedom in its usage as a payment system, they should be considered.

What's the best method we have to mitigate from these attacks? My best guess is to educate and convince users that Ordinals are nonsense. We definitely can't prevent an attacker from executing this, though.

My main issue is storing and distributing other people's data, to be honest. If a random person hands me a hard drive with copyrighted movies and asks me to put that data on my webserver, I will kindly decline.

As I said, I don't have much to provide in the legislative part.

That's like blowing up your car engine, removing it and putting a few dogs in the front to pull the car. It may get you to your destination, but it's sure as hell not the best nor the intended way. And you still damaged the car in the process.

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." — Mahatma Gandhi.  

[garlonicon]

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Why there is a need to make those mistakes on the mainnet, and not on some testnet, or a separate chain, designed specifically for that purpose? If someone need NFTs on-chain, then a separate chain can handle it. If there is a need for Proof of Work protection, then it could be Merge Mined with Bitcoin, and then transactions from separate chain could use SPV proofs into Bitcoin transaction.

[ABCbits]

What if I decide to write a script and spend a few BTC to just send transactions between 2 wallets of mine at 1000sat/vB and render Bitcoin unusable (without paying more than 1000sat/vB to send a transaction)?

What do you suggest to happen in that scenario? Censor those?

I don't think we have a protection against that, either. Much harder problem than here, since those would be 'legitimate' regular transactions.

But unlike creating an NFT/Inscription, loop of sending Bitcoin between 2 address won't make you any money.

Just saying that there are ways to attack Bitcoin and if there are easy mitigations that still allow us to have full freedom in its usage as a payment system, they should be considered.

What's the best method we have to mitigate from these attacks? My best guess is to educate and convince users that Ordinals are nonsense. We definitely can't prevent an attacker from executing this, though.

They would disagree if they want their own data become immutable or hearing people making profit by selling Ordinal's NFT. Another method to mitigate such attack is making TX which push data (using Taproot OP_FALSE OP_IF OP_PUSH) higher than X bytes become non-standard. It's already discussed by some Bitcoin Core contributor on early February[1].

[1] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2023-February/021435.html

[BlackHatCoiner]

Why there is a need to make those mistakes on the mainnet, and not on some testnet, or a separate chain, designed specifically for that purpose?

Address them, not me.

But unlike creating an NFT/Inscription, loop of sending Bitcoin between 2 address won't make you any money.

Debatable. Some billionaire could execute this attack by the impression that it'll ruin Bitcoin's image.

Another method to mitigate such attack is making TX which push data (using Taproot OP_FALSE OP_IF OP_PUSH) higher than X bytes become non-standard. It's already discussed by some Bitcoin Core contributor on early February[1]

Sure, you can configure your node to accept whatever it wants, but that won't stop you from Ordinal fans who'll pay miners include their transactions that pay more. I'm questioning if it even does anything if there's real demand for it. Miners shouldn't follow non-standardness, but pure profit.