NFTs in the Bitcoin blockchain - Ordinal Theory

[philipma1957]

That gives bad actors the opportunity to build a months/years long sustainable ecosystem to price many users out from using the network. The "protocol" of Ordinals by itself is not the attack, but it could be used as an attack vector. It's going to be an annoying few months until the hype goes down, but it might not be the end of that. It goes, then it comes back.

No one is pushed out of using the network . Anyone has the right to increase the fee to a level that will make his transaction enter into the next block . Isn't that the purpose of the fee market , to make blockchain space as much valuable as possible ? Well , mission accomplished . To be honest , i see current fee market at a low level . As soon as more protocols start to create defi's etc on btc , fees will increase in thousands of dollars for a single tx .
The unfortunate ones will be those that will have to exit from LN for whatever reason and those stacking sats . A new era is coming .

Really? Tell that to a person willing to buy $10 worth of BTC. According to you, he now has to pay like what? $50 in fees?   No, we're not pushing anyone out, never.    And to "make blockchain space as much valuable as possible" is the ultimate goal for miners not for all bitcoiners or market in general...

depends if he buys at an exchange.  coinbase won't charge high fee to buy it.

they will charge a high fee to move it off the exchange.

But technically in an exchange it's not actual Bitcoin that you're buying, but mere numbers in their ledger. It only become actual Bitcoin if those units are transferred in a public address with a private key that's under your custody.

In the subject of Ordinals and transaction fees, have we seen the network maintain such high fees that users are willing to pay more than one month? I believe not, but if it does, wouldn't it make Bitcoin more profitable to mine that BCH and BSV miners would start pointing hashing power to Bitcoin?

I guess it's not possible to do merged mining (BTC + BCH + BSV) with SHA-256 ASICs? (like Scrypt ASICs can do merged mining -> LTC + DOGE)

you can't developers did not set it up that way.

For me I see a simple economic issue

scrypt  does 12 blocks LTC+Doge
sha-256 does 1 block

No matter what btc does to scale ltc+ doge can copy it and move 12 the tx's

the natural order is

 BTC move big wealth
LTC + doge move small wealth

[larry_vw_1955]

the natural order is

 BTC move big wealth
LTC + doge move small wealth

yeah, i think we all realize there's some altcoins with tiny fees. but to some people that kind of makes them feel like a traitor to bitcoin. they thought they could use bitcoin for all their banking needs. well, if you're willing to pay then i guess you can! but lesson #1 is the blockchain doesn't care about how expensive it is for people to make a transaction it really couldn't care less. otherwise it would have been designed such that the fee could never be more than a certain amount in US dollars. I realize that doing that would require an oracle of some kind and people would be against that though...

Block explorers will be compensated in the future . With fees of a thousandth of a cent per tx , it will be nothing for a user that wants to check his tx to pay 0.01 $ per check .

With bitcoin the way it is right now, that doesn't seem logistically possible to do, aka, micropayments. Unless you as the node operator accept Litecoin. or some other altcoin with low fees. but that would be like encouraging people to use Litecoin instead of bitcoin...

[cryptosize]

the natural order is

 BTC move big wealth
LTC + doge move small wealth

yeah, i think we all realize there's some altcoins with tiny fees. but to some people that kind of makes them feel like a traitor to bitcoin. they thought they could use bitcoin for all their banking needs. well, if you're willing to pay then i guess you can! but lesson #1 is the blockchain doesn't care about how expensive it is for people to make a transaction it really couldn't care less. otherwise it would have been designed such that the fee could never be more than a certain amount in US dollars. I realize that doing that would require an oracle of some kind and people would be against that though...

Block explorers will be compensated in the future . With fees of a thousandth of a cent per tx , it will be nothing for a user that wants to check his tx to pay 0.01 $ per check .

With bitcoin the way it is right now, that doesn't seem logistically possible to do, aka, micropayments. Unless you as the node operator accept Litecoin. or some other altcoin with low fees. but that would be like encouraging people to use Litecoin instead of bitcoin...

In the Linux space you won't find the absolute, perfect Linux distro that does everything. Have you ever seen Linux distro wars/heated debates?

Why should Bitcoin be the absolute, perfect cryptocurrency that does everything?

That's why multiple cryptocurrencies exist. People should make peace with that fact.

Of course that doesn't mean that every altcoin has a purpose. 99,99% of alts are scams. But some long-standing alts (like XMR, LTC, DOGE) are here to stay, I think that's obvious.

[Wind_FURY]

That gives bad actors the opportunity to build a months/years long sustainable ecosystem to price many users out from using the network. The "protocol" of Ordinals by itself is not the attack, but it could be used as an attack vector. It's going to be an annoying few months until the hype goes down, but it might not be the end of that. It goes, then it comes back.

No one is pushed out of using the network . Anyone has the right to increase the fee to a level that will make his transaction enter into the next block . Isn't that the purpose of the fee market , to make blockchain space as much valuable as possible ? Well , mission accomplished . To be honest , i see current fee market at a low level . As soon as more protocols start to create defi's etc on btc , fees will increase in thousands of dollars for a single tx .
The unfortunate ones will be those that will have to exit from LN for whatever reason and those stacking sats . A new era is coming .

Really? Tell that to a person willing to buy $10 worth of BTC. According to you, he now has to pay like what? $50 in fees?   No, we're not pushing anyone out, never.    And to "make blockchain space as much valuable as possible" is the ultimate goal for miners not for all bitcoiners or market in general...

depends if he buys at an exchange.  coinbase won't charge high fee to buy it.

they will charge a high fee to move it off the exchange.

But technically in an exchange it's not actual Bitcoin that you're buying, but mere numbers in their ledger. It only become actual Bitcoin if those units are transferred in a public address with a private key that's under your custody.

In the subject of Ordinals and transaction fees, have we seen the network maintain such high fees that users are willing to pay more than one month? I believe not, but if it does, wouldn't it make Bitcoin more profitable to mine that BCH and BSV miners would start pointing hashing power to Bitcoin?

I guess it's not possible to do merged mining (BTC + BCH + BSV) with SHA-256 ASICs? (like Scrypt ASICs can do merged mining -> LTC + DOGE)

I'm not talking about merged mining, ser. I'm asking if BCash and BCash SV miners will actually STOP mining in those chains, and start pointing their hashing power to mine Bitcoin.

The point why I'm asking is, because of the high fees, then would it be more profitable for miners to, probably temporarily, start pointing hashing power to Bitcoin.

[cryptosize]

That gives bad actors the opportunity to build a months/years long sustainable ecosystem to price many users out from using the network. The "protocol" of Ordinals by itself is not the attack, but it could be used as an attack vector. It's going to be an annoying few months until the hype goes down, but it might not be the end of that. It goes, then it comes back.

No one is pushed out of using the network . Anyone has the right to increase the fee to a level that will make his transaction enter into the next block . Isn't that the purpose of the fee market , to make blockchain space as much valuable as possible ? Well , mission accomplished . To be honest , i see current fee market at a low level . As soon as more protocols start to create defi's etc on btc , fees will increase in thousands of dollars for a single tx .
The unfortunate ones will be those that will have to exit from LN for whatever reason and those stacking sats . A new era is coming .

Really? Tell that to a person willing to buy $10 worth of BTC. According to you, he now has to pay like what? $50 in fees?   No, we're not pushing anyone out, never.    And to "make blockchain space as much valuable as possible" is the ultimate goal for miners not for all bitcoiners or market in general...

depends if he buys at an exchange.  coinbase won't charge high fee to buy it.

they will charge a high fee to move it off the exchange.

But technically in an exchange it's not actual Bitcoin that you're buying, but mere numbers in their ledger. It only become actual Bitcoin if those units are transferred in a public address with a private key that's under your custody.

In the subject of Ordinals and transaction fees, have we seen the network maintain such high fees that users are willing to pay more than one month? I believe not, but if it does, wouldn't it make Bitcoin more profitable to mine that BCH and BSV miners would start pointing hashing power to Bitcoin?

I guess it's not possible to do merged mining (BTC + BCH + BSV) with SHA-256 ASICs? (like Scrypt ASICs can do merged mining -> LTC + DOGE)

I'm not talking about merged mining, ser. I'm asking if BCash and BCash SV miners will actually STOP mining in those chains, and start pointing their hashing power to mine Bitcoin.

The point why I'm asking is, because of the high fees, then would it be more profitable for miners to, probably temporarily, start pointing hashing power to Bitcoin.

You're right, but I was just wondering why LTC/DOGE can have merged mining, while BTC/BCH/BSV cannot do the same (which makes BCH/BSV prone to 51% attacks):

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2019/05/24/bitcoin-cash-miners-undo-attackers-transactions-with-51-attack/
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/08/04/bsv-suffers-51-attack-report/

[garlonicon]

Why should Bitcoin be the absolute, perfect cryptocurrency that does everything?

It doesn't have to be. But if you brought Linux distros as an example, then note one thing: each main package is usually taken from the same source, and only slightly tweaked here and there by every distro. And if you compare cryptocurrencies with distros, then you note that sidechains are needed, if you want to reflect the same situation.

Also, if you use Debian, it doesn't mean you cannot use Ubuntu on the same device. And note that you can have a hybrid system, where some packages are in a common repo, and used by both systems simultaneously, with the same source code, and binaries. If you have ELF executables and libraries, you can make it in a way, where for a lot of software, it will be cross-platform, when it comes to different distros.

And again: if you have any installation instructions, then they are often identical for a lot of packages. You have a Windows version, a Linux version, and maybe also others, like MacOS version, or Android/iOS version. But in general, if you have Linux version, then it works everywhere, if you can run ELF files. If you download Bitcoin Core, you don't have separate packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and so on. You can have them, and many distros provide them, but if you grab it from official Bitcoin Core page, then there is one version for Linux, and it works in most distros.

Have you ever seen Linux distro wars/heated debates?

Of course I saw them. And in the same way, I saw such debates, when it comes to spaces versus tabs, or when it comes to programming languages, or text editors. But my opinion on that matter is quite simple: use whatever works, and it will be fine. If you provide a package, you just provide one Linux version, and you don't think, what distro is needed. You can write it in a portable way.

Also, addressing other topics: I prefer tabs, but spaces already won the battle. And we don't have Elastic Tabstops widely deployed, because they are somewhat incompatible with ASCII-art, and all console outputs assume fixed-width font.

When it comes to programming languages, then you can pick whatever you want, but good, old, C language, is what you can call "portable assembly", because it will probably work on every possible architecture (and it is one of the first things to be ported, if any new architecture is invented).

About text editors: use whatever you want, as long as your text is unformatted. If it is, then you can grep it. And also, sticking to ASCII or UTF-8 is the best choice. New lines can be chosen at will, because you have "\r\n" or "\n", and most editors can deal with that. And if you use Git, then it can automatically convert files between those two. I usually prefer "\n", but I can handle "\r\n" when needed.

But some long-standing alts (like XMR, LTC, DOGE) are here to stay, I think that's obvious.

Standardization is good. You already have Windows Subsystem for Linux, you have Wine, and if you want portability, then you have to end up with a browser, because it works on every device. I guess in the future, there will be more bridges between different coins. And if some proposals will be merged, then you will even have decentralized bridges between all major coins.

[Bright Venus]

I'm enjoying the talking, learning a lot from you guys

[philipma1957]

the natural order is

 BTC move big wealth
LTC + doge move small wealth

yeah, i think we all realize there's some altcoins with tiny fees. but to some people that kind of makes them feel like a traitor to bitcoin. they thought they could use bitcoin for all their banking needs. well, if you're willing to pay then i guess you can! but lesson #1 is the blockchain doesn't care about how expensive it is for people to make a transaction it really couldn't care less. otherwise it would have been designed such that the fee could never be more than a certain amount in US dollars. I realize that doing that would require an oracle of some kind and people would be against that though...

Block explorers will be compensated in the future . With fees of a thousandth of a cent per tx , it will be nothing for a user that wants to check his tx to pay 0.01 $ per check .

With bitcoin the way it is right now, that doesn't seem logistically possible to do, aka, micropayments. Unless you as the node operator accept Litecoin. or some other altcoin with low fees. but that would be like encouraging people to use Litecoin instead of bitcoin...

No you simply don't understand the economics involved here.

foundry (biggest pool) does not need nfts.

they own 33% of the hashrate.


Forgot now think April block reward is 3.125 coins. fees are ?


Look at last 2 days of fees below

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5431167.msg63341261#msg63341261
<snip>
block fees

4.60
5.29
2.49
3.47
3.04
3.95
3.20
2.37
3.24
3.43
2.87
3.01
3.98
3.57
4.60
4.45
3.11
3.73
4.36
4.38
4.38
4.00
3.62
3.41
3.01
2.63
2.56
4.29
2.83
2.79
2.90
3.19
3.25
2.65
3.60
3.93
4.75
2.94
2.84
2.55
3,58
3.70
3.65
3.56
3.96
4.64
5.40
4.51
4.77
5.55
5.55
6.19
5.44
5.71
6.36
6.76
6.89
7.86
6.36
5.83
5.96
5.06
4.17
4.07
3.94
3.40
4.74
3.24
3.09
3.67
3.41
3,41
3.29
3.30
4.00
2.98
3.85
4.81
3.83
3.83
3.83
3.75
3.46
4.58
4.18
3.46
3.57
4.60
3.19
4.36
3.08
2.56
3.65
3.51
3.21
3.27
3.62
3.19
3.80
3.14
3.41
3.62
3.43
3.71
3.91
3.57
3.45
3.96
3.57
3.45
3.96
4.72
3.67
3.82
4.52
4.46
4.11
 0 >>>>>>>>>> ant pool
3.99
4.08
3.94
4.46
3.53
3.64
3.88
3.99
4.05
5.26
4.02
4.41.
4.25
4.29
4.73
4.75
5.00
6.01
5.88
6.51
5.54
6.30.
5.00
5.09
5.39
6.25
4.73
5.05
5.73
5.38
6.07

0 >>>>> AntPool

5.41
5.35
6.66
6.08
5.53
5.84
6.24
6.61
7.74
7.05,
5.56
5.91
6.15
5.91
5.99
6.45
6.74
6.93
7.38
7.41,
8.05
7.31
7.16
4.87
4.84
4.84
4.07
4.19
4.61
4.08.
4.08
4.80
4.48
4.22
4.66
3.88
3.76
4.19
2.76
4.13,
3.04
3.05
3.22
3.17
3.56
3.38
3.99
3.85
3.13
3.21,
3.56
3.38
3.73
3.57
3.79
3.77
4.21
4.58
3.89
4.29,
3.03
3.21
3.11
2.30
2.54
2.33
2.25
2.78
2.33
2.67,
2.33
2.66
2.59
3.03
3.26
2.92
2.23
2.37
2.57
2.98,
2.40
2.85
2.38
2.61
2.57
1.68
1.77
2.17

foundry in May can simply down clock all its gear and not mine 48 blocks a day.

Say they mine 30 blocks a day for 4 days.  that clogs the mempool fees go to 3 or 4 coins

crank the gear back up and mine 48 blocks a day


So for 4 days they lose 72 blocks of say 4 coins with the fees or 288 coins OMG

then for 10 days they mine 48 block with boosted fees of say 1 goes to 4

that is 10 x 48 = 480 blocks with 2 or 3 extra coins or 960 to 1440 more coins

and they have a drop in power expense


I am not making this up it is real math.  It is why 2023 has been the highest fee years every in sats and in cash value.

but 2024 will be higher.

[larry_vw_1955]

No you simply don't understand the economics involved here.

foundry (biggest pool) does not need nfts.

they own 33% of the hashrate.

....

he said something like block explorers (non-miners) would have to charge a fee. the problem is that's not how bitcoin is setup. non-mining nodes have no way of making money in the bitcoin ecosystem. so if they don't like running their node then they can turn it off. but they can't inject themself into a transaction.

[garlonicon]

non-mining nodes have no way of making money in the bitcoin ecosystem

Why do you think so? What about Lightning Network? What about casinos? What about exchanges? They don't have to mine new coins to get them.

but they can't inject themself into a transaction

It depends on sighashes. And if mempools will be permanently flooded, then batching will be needed, and there will be services, which will batch transactions, and grab some fees for doing that. But yes, users have to agree on that, by constructing a transaction in a different way. And if you have a choice: create your transaction alone, and have 1 GB of other pending transactions before it will be confirmed, or batch it, and get it confirmed faster, then it is not that hard to imagine, that many people will choose batching, if that option will be available.

[Wind_FURY]

non-mining nodes have no way of making money in the bitcoin ecosystem

Why do you think so? What about Lightning Network? What about casinos? What about exchanges? They don't have to mine new coins to get them.

but they can't inject themself into a transaction

It depends on sighashes. And if mempools will be permanently flooded, then batching will be needed, and there will be services, which will batch transactions, and grab some fees for doing that. But yes, users have to agree on that, by constructing a transaction in a different way. And if you have a choice: create your transaction alone, and have 1 GB of other pending transactions before it will be confirmed, or batch it, and get it confirmed faster, then it is not that hard to imagine, that many people will choose batching, if that option will be available.

But how will they be batched? In the order on when the transactions were broadcasted? Because as the fees become a more and more important source of incentivization for mining a block, wouldn't batching shake up the fee market, and therefore shaking up the network's incentive structure too?

Plus if there's such a service that could put your transaction first in line before the user who paid a higher fee, how and by who is the service subsidized?

[garlonicon]

But how will the be batched?

We have the first tool to batch things, which is called Full-RBF. And more tools will come. Because if you have a chain of unconfirmed transactions, for example Alice->Bob->Charlie, then Alice can create a Full-RBF transaction, sending coins directly to Charlie, and it will be smaller, so even if you preserve all amounts, the feerate will increase.

But of course, the perfect scenario would mean doing that things, without asking Alice, just by observing your mempool, and combining transactions, without invalidating signatures. And of course, to make it possible, it is needed to create tools, which will allow making transactions, which will be "opened for being joined" in the first place.

In the order on when the transactions were broadcasted?

Well, if you want to batch some transactions, then you need an exact match. It is possible to construct a transaction in a way, where you can replace Alice->Bob->Charlie into Alice->Charlie, without asking anyone for making another signature, and only into Alice->Charlie transaction (or any other combination, for which you have proper signatures).

Because as the fees become a more and more important source of incentivization for mining a block, wouldn't batching shake up the fee market, and therefore shaking up the network's incentive structure too?

No, because fees will be left unchanged. If you paid 0.01 BTC for Alice->Bob->Charlie, then you will also pay at least 0.01 BTC for Alice->Charlie transaction. But because it will be smaller, miners will have an incentive to include a shorter version, which will give the same outcome.

Plus if there's such a service that could put your transaction first in line before the user who paid a higher fee, how and by who is the service subsidized?

It is not about paying less, if you count the fees in final blocks. It is about joining forces to pay less per user, while having the same fee per transaction. But yes, it will affect the network, but in a positive sense: it is easier to batch regular payments, than for example Ordinals, because they will lose their precious on-chain data in the process. But it is a feature, not a bug: regular users need a way to compete, and batching is one of possible ways to have any chance.

[ABCbits]

--snip--

You're right, but I was just wondering why LTC/DOGE can have merged mining, while BTC/BCH/BSV cannot do the same (which makes BCH/BSV prone to 51% attacks):

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2019/05/24/bitcoin-cash-miners-undo-attackers-transactions-with-51-attack/
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/08/04/bsv-suffers-51-attack-report/

People would perceived that BCH or BSV community acknowledge BTC is superior in some ways. There's no way BSV community and faketoshi would do that.

but they can't inject themself into a transaction

It depends on sighashes. And if mempools will be permanently flooded, then batching will be needed, and there will be services, which will batch transactions, and grab some fees for doing that. But yes, users have to agree on that, by constructing a transaction in a different way. And if you have a choice: create your transaction alone, and have 1 GB of other pending transactions before it will be confirmed, or batch it, and get it confirmed faster, then it is not that hard to imagine, that many people will choose batching, if that option will be available.

Rather than services, we might as well as add protocol which allow non-interactive cut-through or CoinJoin.

[Wind_FURY]

--snip--

You're right, but I was just wondering why LTC/DOGE can have merged mining, while BTC/BCH/BSV cannot do the same (which makes BCH/BSV prone to 51% attacks):

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2019/05/24/bitcoin-cash-miners-undo-attackers-transactions-with-51-attack/
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/08/04/bsv-suffers-51-attack-report/

People would perceived that BCH or BSV community acknowledge BTC is superior in some ways. There's no way BSV community and faketoshi would do that.

There's no need to mention what they believe or if there's actually a need to acknowledge that Bitcoin is superior because it IS superior by all comparisons. People will know it, either the easy way or the hard way.

But they will always claim that their network has higher transaction throughput and therefore "scales", but how do we define "scale". Higher throughput but sacrifices decentralization? That's not scaling. It actually scales the network down, reducing node count, and therefore centralizing the network.

[cmpeq]

But they will always claim that their network has higher transaction throughput and therefore "scales", but how do we define "scale". Higher throughput but sacrifices decentralization? That's not scaling. It actually scales the network down, reducing node count, and therefore centralizing the network.

Exactly. With one caveat, if we can verify zero knowledge proofs and merkle proofs in bitcoin script, can process millions of transactions in a single uxto without sacrificing and scale, no trade offs, just proof of math (constant size proof -> proves arbitrary number of transactions -> user proves balance via merkle proof -> unlock uxto).

[takuma sato]

That gives bad actors the opportunity to build a months/years long sustainable ecosystem to price many users out from using the network. The "protocol" of Ordinals by itself is not the attack, but it could be used as an attack vector. It's going to be an annoying few months until the hype goes down, but it might not be the end of that. It goes, then it comes back.

No one is pushed out of using the network . Anyone has the right to increase the fee to a level that will make his transaction enter into the next block . Isn't that the purpose of the fee market , to make blockchain space as much valuable as possible ? Well , mission accomplished . To be honest , i see current fee market at a low level . As soon as more protocols start to create defi's etc on btc , fees will increase in thousands of dollars for a single tx .
The unfortunate ones will be those that will have to exit from LN for whatever reason and those stacking sats . A new era is coming .

Really? Tell that to a person willing to buy $10 worth of BTC. According to you, he now has to pay like what? $50 in fees?   No, we're not pushing anyone out, never.    And to "make blockchain space as much valuable as possible" is the ultimate goal for miners not for all bitcoiners or market in general...

depends if he buys at an exchange.  coinbase won't charge high fee to buy it.

they will charge a high fee to move it off the exchange.

But technically in an exchange it's not actual Bitcoin that you're buying, but mere numbers in their ledger. It only become actual Bitcoin if those units are transferred in a public address with a private key that's under your custody.

In the subject of Ordinals and transaction fees, have we seen the network maintain such high fees that users are willing to pay more than one month? I believe not, but if it does, wouldn't it make Bitcoin more profitable to mine that BCH and BSV miners would start pointing hashing power to Bitcoin?

Governments have an huge incentive to not have people withdrawing bitcoin from exchanges and putting them into local wallets they can't control, so high fees play on their favor in this sense. At the same time, it limits the use of bitcoin as cash easily, or at least for now, when LN is not that mainstream and well understood.

On the other hand, governments would like big blocks, since they could just control the nodes at will. They would be datacenters that are registered and basically would get told what to do and what software to run.

So you have to factor in both. What is more important? I think it's clear, the second one is. Paying higher fees is worth avoiding datacenters as nodes scenario.

Ordinals are a waste of block space but what can we do? miners just want profits and they'll mine blocks irrespective of what they contain.

[Wind_FURY]

That gives bad actors the opportunity to build a months/years long sustainable ecosystem to price many users out from using the network. The "protocol" of Ordinals by itself is not the attack, but it could be used as an attack vector. It's going to be an annoying few months until the hype goes down, but it might not be the end of that. It goes, then it comes back.

No one is pushed out of using the network . Anyone has the right to increase the fee to a level that will make his transaction enter into the next block . Isn't that the purpose of the fee market , to make blockchain space as much valuable as possible ? Well , mission accomplished . To be honest , i see current fee market at a low level . As soon as more protocols start to create defi's etc on btc , fees will increase in thousands of dollars for a single tx .
The unfortunate ones will be those that will have to exit from LN for whatever reason and those stacking sats . A new era is coming .

Really? Tell that to a person willing to buy $10 worth of BTC. According to you, he now has to pay like what? $50 in fees?   No, we're not pushing anyone out, never.    And to "make blockchain space as much valuable as possible" is the ultimate goal for miners not for all bitcoiners or market in general...

depends if he buys at an exchange.  coinbase won't charge high fee to buy it.

they will charge a high fee to move it off the exchange.

But technically in an exchange it's not actual Bitcoin that you're buying, but mere numbers in their ledger. It only become actual Bitcoin if those units are transferred in a public address with a private key that's under your custody.

In the subject of Ordinals and transaction fees, have we seen the network maintain such high fees that users are willing to pay more than one month? I believe not, but if it does, wouldn't it make Bitcoin more profitable to mine that BCH and BSV miners would start pointing hashing power to Bitcoin?

Governments have an huge incentive to not have people withdrawing bitcoin from exchanges and putting them into local wallets they can't control, so high fees play on their favor in this sense. At the same time, it limits the use of bitcoin as cash easily, or at least for now, when LN is not that mainstream and well understood.

On the other hand, governments would like big blocks, since they could just control the nodes at will. They would be datacenters that are registered and basically would get told what to do and what software to run.

So you have to factor in both. What is more important? I think it's clear, the second one is. Paying higher fees is worth avoiding datacenters as nodes scenario.

From a long-term perspective and from the network's point of view, Bitcoin's survival depends on that it should be decentralized enough and that the blockchain should be redundant enough. But it will be at the cost of users being priced out, temporarily, from using the network for simple Bitcoin transfers.

Ordinals are a waste of block space but what can we do? miners just want profits and they'll mine blocks irrespective of what they contain.

Technically it isn't a waste in block space. It doesn't take the space from actual Bitcoin transactions. Ordinals NFTs reside in the part of the block where witness data resides. They are prunable.

[ABCbits]

Ordinals are a waste of block space but what can we do? miners just want profits and they'll mine blocks irrespective of what they contain.

Technically it isn't a waste in block space. It doesn't take the space from actual Bitcoin transactions.

It's obviously wrong, Ordinals TX has size more than 0.

Ordinals NFTs reside in the part of the block where witness data resides. They are prunable.

Aside from prune node which only store latest blocks, you still need to store UTXO created by Ordinals inscription. Ordinals (mainly BRC-20) popularity massive increase total UTXO where it already impact IBD (initial block download) speed for Raspberry Pi and other device with <= 8GB of RAM.

[Wind_FURY]

Ordinals are a waste of block space but what can we do? miners just want profits and they'll mine blocks irrespective of what they contain.

Technically it isn't a waste in block space. It doesn't take the space from actual Bitcoin transactions.

It's obviously wrong, Ordinals TX has size more than 0.

I didn't say Ordinals transaction size isn't zero. I said technically it isn't a waste in block space. Why? Because the data isn't embedded within the structure where the UTXO set is stored. It goes to the structure of the block where witness data are stored, which is prunable.

But Bitcoin Stamps is something different, and it should be more concerning in my opinion.

[ABCbits]

--snip--

It's obviously wrong, Ordinals TX has size more than 0.

I didn't say Ordinals transaction size isn't zero. I said technically it isn't a waste in block space. Why? Because the data isn't embedded within the structure where the UTXO set is stored. It goes to the structure of the block where witness data are stored, which is prunable.

1. While it's true you can prune witness data, AFAIK there's no full node which let you do that.
2. It's still waste of block size since Ordinals TX has size more than 0. Possibility of pruning witness data actually means it's not waste of storage space.

But Bitcoin Stamps is something different, and it should be more concerning in my opinion.

It's definitely more concerning, although it's easier to make such TX become non-standard.