'Attack on Bitcoin’ Claims Circulate as Transaction Fees Climb Higher

[Wind_FURY]

a discussion about ways to protect Bitcoin

While I don't doubt your intentions are good, the way in which most people seem to be going about this, the proposed "solution" sounds to me like a bigger threat then the underlying problem.  You don't cure the disease by killing the patient.  All I see is an angry, ignorant lynch-mob with their pitchforks and torches threatening to burn down the whole village to "fix" things.  If people burn this thing to the ground, there will be nothing left worth having.

I believe everyone should zoom out and get a view of the situation as if they were outside, not inside. There are some people who are becoming too emotional and they try to make it as a sort of drama/social problem, instead of what it really should be - a technical problem. Because if the knee-jerk reaction is to prevent propagation of Ordinals, then they will send those transactions directly to a miner for validation, OR, they might start looking for other ways to embed data within the part of the block that's not prunable, like Bitcoin Stamps.

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[NewRanger]

That's just it.  Nothing I've seen so far even remotely resembles a fix.  Just clumsy hacks that won't prevent someone determined to embed data and could have long-term unintended consequences.  I don't think farcical games of 'whack-a-mole' are the way forward and that's all I've seen proposed so far. 

Or this just a response to threats because the pola is basically the same and continues to develop, but at a glance if you look at capacity, perhaps not all organizations have sufficient resources to adopt the latest security technology and recognizing that together is important and considered a positive step. There is a real need for Security Technology Evolution at this time to protect/embed data even though we know this pool is very vulnerable to attacks.

[OgNasty]

Sometimes these things do appear as an attack on Bitcoin.  You can't deny that Bitcoin's mempool being full had an effect on coins like Solana, that suddenly doubled or more in value.  It would make sense if this sort of thing were coordinated as a way to help pump their bags.  However, even if this is just an "attack" on Bitcoin, someday the real usage of the blockchain will result in this sort of backlog and higher fees.  It would be wise to start thinking about ways to prevent this from bringing Bitcoin activity to a hat anytime someone wants to try and pump their altcoin bags.

[Abiky]

There's no easy way to undo ordinals at this point. You are going to need to gather enough capital and mining power involved to basically push for what would be a BTC hardfork without ordinals, and this would need to be done in a way that guarantees no future ordinals are possible, but then again, how do you this without causing another hardfork civil war, and how do you do it without getting rid of taproot? because if taproot is possible, I believe there could be ways around any restrictions put into ordinals to come up with alternatives.

It's all because of SegWit + Taproot. Without those upgrades, Bitcoin would've stayed a pure money system by now. Forks like BCH and BSV didn't need Taproot because they took a different approach for scaling (increasing the block size). They are safe from Ordinals. Now BTC developers would need to find a way to lower the fees without censoring Ordinals inscriptions. I know miners won't like this, but it's the majority that counts (users, node operators, businesses, etc). If a super majority approves a reduction on network fees, miners would have no choice but to "go with the flow".

I hope this issue gets solved ASAP, for Bitcoin to reach the masses. Especially people in developing countries. At its current state, Bitcoin can only be used by whales and the elite. This creates an unequal system where the rich get richer and the poor, poorer. The future is widely unpredictable, so we can only hope for the best.

[franky1]

Now BTC developers would need to find a way to lower the fees without censoring Ordinals inscriptions.

bitcoin has always censored transactions.. thats what validation rules are for!!!
its why we dont see LTC BCH BCV XRP, DOGE transactions in the bitcoin blockchain
its why we dont see double spends, dust and a whole array of other cases of transactions that didnt fit the ruleset

I know miners won't like this, but it's the majority that counts (users, node operators, businesses, etc). If a super majority approves a reduction on network fees, miners would have no choice but to "go with the flow".

doing a true consensus activation to reduce fee's is not a solution. what needs to happen is actual code REINTRODUCED to actually understand the opcodes used, disable the opcodes with no conditions and only treat unconditioned opcodes as block acceptable if the block version is noted as activated to a higher ruleset
that way people cant just abuse unconditioned opcodes and blocks wont put junk into a block out of fear of having blocks rejected for having junk that the network does not understand/validate

the other option is adding a fee priority formulae again that just penalises users that use certain opcodes.

[Wind_FURY]

There's no easy way to undo ordinals at this point. You are going to need to gather enough capital and mining power involved to basically push for what would be a BTC hardfork without ordinals, and this would need to be done in a way that guarantees no future ordinals are possible, but then again, how do you this without causing another hardfork civil war, and how do you do it without getting rid of taproot? because if taproot is possible, I believe there could be ways around any restrictions put into ordinals to come up with alternatives.

It's all because of SegWit + Taproot. Without those upgrades, Bitcoin would've stayed a pure money system by now. Forks like BCH and BSV didn't need Taproot because they took a different approach for scaling (increasing the block size). They are safe from Ordinals. Now BTC developers would need to find a way to lower the fees without censoring Ordinals inscriptions. I know miners won't like this, but it's the majority that counts (users, node operators, businesses, etc). If a super majority approves a reduction on network fees, miners would have no choice but to "go with the flow".

Ordinals happened because of Segwit + Taproot? Can a developer correct me on what I'm about to post, but no ser. Ordinals would have still happened without Segwit + Taproot, and if the network didn't have Segwit, Ordinals would be embedding arbitrary data within the blocks itself, not in the structure where the witness data resides - which is prunable.

Plus merely increasing the block size at the cost of centralizing the network is not scaling.

Now BTC developers would need to find a way to lower the fees without censoring Ordinals inscriptions.

bitcoin has always censored transactions.. thats what validation rules are for!!!
its why we dont see LTC BCH BCV XRP, DOGE transactions in the bitcoin blockchain
its why we dont see double spends, dust and a whole array of other cases of transactions that didnt fit the ruleset

 

frankandbeans, stop gaslighting Abiky. The full nodes enforcing the network's consensus rules is NOT censorship.

[DeathAngel]

This entire fiasco is a short-term issue which I doubt will ever repeat again at any point in the future since whoever is responsible for it doesn't have unlimited money to burn. The silver lining here is that the miners made bank.

BTC has proven again and again that it can withstand any kind of attack which is the best answer to all of its haters.

Agree with all said here, the Ordinals guys will run out of money or move onto the next stupid craze. It’s disruptive & makes fees much higher but I think they will move onto something else soon. It’s like the ICO craze of 2017, the NFT craze of 2020/21. Those crazes dried up & people got bored, they will also get bored of stupid images stored on the blockchain too.

[Abiky]

Agree with all said here, the Ordinals guys will run out of money or move onto the next stupid craze. It’s disruptive & makes fees much higher but I think they will move onto something else soon. It’s like the ICO craze of 2017, the NFT craze of 2020/21. Those crazes dried up & people got bored, they will also get bored of stupid images stored on the blockchain too.

There's no utility in Ordinals inscriptions. Most of them are driven by hype more than anything else (pure speculation). Everybody wants to get rich, right? It will be all over faster than you could imagine. In the meantime, I'd suggest you hold onto your BTC unless it's really something important.

Moving out of BTC into an altcoin can be challenging, especially if on-chain fees stay high for long periods of time. Getting paid directly in an altcoin of your choice (or even the LN) may be your best bet of avoiding high fees altogether. Many users are angry of Bitcoin's current situation, so it should only be a matter of time before the dust settles. As long as decentralization is preserved, there should be nothing to worry about.

[Wind_FURY]

Agree with all said here, the Ordinals guys will run out of money or move onto the next stupid craze. It’s disruptive & makes fees much higher but I think they will move onto something else soon. It’s like the ICO craze of 2017, the NFT craze of 2020/21. Those crazes dried up & people got bored, they will also get bored of stupid images stored on the blockchain too.

There's no utility in Ordinals inscriptions. Most of them are driven by hype more than anything else (pure speculation). Everybody wants to get rich, right? It will be all over faster than you could imagine. In the meantime, I'd suggest you hold onto your BTC unless it's really something important.

Moving out of BTC into an altcoin can be challenging, especially if on-chain fees stay high for long periods of time. Getting paid directly in an altcoin of your choice (or even the LN) may be your best bet of avoiding high fees altogether. Many users are angry of Bitcoin's current situation, so it should only be a matter of time before the dust settles. As long as decentralization is preserved, there should be nothing to worry about.

The situation is VERY annoying, but as what has been said before, Bitcoin is still doing its job, and doing its job well. It has been chugging along, producing block after block, while also incentivizing the providers of network security. But is it currently giving its users the best UX? NO, and although I agree that something should be done, I believe it shouldn't be taken by the community as a sort of drama/social/philosophical issue. I believe many developers would contend that it's a technical issue.

[AicecreaME]

it doesn't matter who is responsible for the attack and what types of transactions are flooding the blockchain... someone is paying for this.

Transactions are vitamins to keep the network lively. People who are readily to pay those expensive transaction fees deserve what they do but it affects other people who are not ready to accept very expensive transaction fee. They are either smart enough or poor enough and can not afford to pay such crazy fee.

so you have 60 000$ per 10 min = 9 mln $ per day. No matter if its bitcoin attacker that wanted the price to collapse, or pepe kids excited about new use case, sooner or later they will run out of cash. And there will be only one winner. bitcoin miners = bitcoin security = bitcoin network

I don't like what are happening with Bitcoin blockchain and its transaction fee but this attack gives us a signal that Bitcoin miners will be fine in future. Even in 2140 when no new bitcoins from block reward, they will still earn enough money from transaction fees.

Correct.

I mean, there's nothing wrong to give miners profit from time to time since they also deserve it. We just have to make every transaction worth the transaction fee so we can save money as much as possible. It's not worth it to transfer bitcoin to another wallet in which transaction fee is much bigger than the amount of bitcoin that's going to be transfer.

[Abiky]

The situation is VERY annoying, but as what has been said before, Bitcoin is still doing its job, and doing its job well. It has been chugging along, producing block after block, while also incentivizing the providers of network security. But is it currently giving its users the best UX? NO, and although I agree that something should be done, I believe it shouldn't be taken by the community as a sort of drama/social/philosophical issue. I believe many developers would contend that it's a technical issue.

Yes. Claiming Ordinals inscriptions are a "technical issue" or a "vulnerability" is completely wrong. This is more like a feature than a bug as it proves Bitcoin's use cases far beyond finance. High fees may be annoying, but I believe things will settle after the hype. Even without the Ordinals craze, network fees were going to rise due to high demand. The more popular BTC gets, the more congested it will be. It's up to developers to introduce scaling techniques that will keep network fees as low as possible.

Censoring Ordinals is not an option because it goes against the fundamentals of Bitcoin which are freedom/liberty/censorship-resistance. Aren't banks censoring Fiat transactions at will? Then why should BTC do the same? It must make a difference by being a viable alternative to Fiat currencies in every way possible. We can't predict what will happen in the future, so lets hope for the best.

[philipma1957]

here are your last 50 or so block fees are huge.


so for a miner getting 2 btc in fees and blocks at 8.25 coins btc is more like

8.25/6.50 = 127% or 54576 usd a coin

not bad but if the ½ ing drops us to  3.125 coins add 2 in fees you get 5.125 coins a block. lets say 3.5 should be correct.

then 5.125/3.5 = 146% which means to that miner  a 43000 coin is 62964 usd.  I think we are seeing what miners want to accomplish after the ½ ing. (big 100 megawatt farms)

I think we need to gear ourselves to exchanges that offer LN.  Keep 1 btc on the chain in you own wallet and 0.10 or less on an exchange that gives you LN. people you need to adjust.


last 50 blocks:

[FinneysTrueVision]

It's all because of SegWit + Taproot. Without those upgrades, Bitcoin would've stayed a pure money system by now. Forks like BCH and BSV didn't need Taproot because they took a different approach for scaling (increasing the block size). They are safe from Ordinals. Now BTC developers would need to find a way to lower the fees without censoring Ordinals inscriptions. I know miners won't like this, but it's the majority that counts (users, node operators, businesses, etc). If a super majority approves a reduction on network fees, miners would have no choice but to "go with the flow".

I hope this issue gets solved ASAP, for Bitcoin to reach the masses. Especially people in developing countries. At its current state, Bitcoin can only be used by whales and the elite. This creates an unequal system where the rich get richer and the poor, poorer. The future is widely unpredictable, so we can only hope for the best.

Bcash SV is literally just terabytes of spam transactions. The BCH and BCH SV approach to scaling just made them more centralized. Prioritizing cheap fees only makes it easier for people to abuse the network and gives more power to centralized authorities.

This obsession with mass adoption is a fool's errand. Bitcoin can never be optimized to fulfill the needs of every single person on Earth. Any attempt to do so will likely result in serious compromises that would make it hard to distinguish from fiat currency.

[Abiky]

Bcash SV is literally just terabytes of spam transactions. The BCH and BCH SV approach to scaling just made them more centralized. Prioritizing cheap fees only makes it easier for people to abuse the network and gives more power to centralized authorities.

This obsession with mass adoption is a fool's errand. Bitcoin can never be optimized to fulfill the needs of every single person on Earth. Any attempt to do so will likely result in serious compromises that would make it hard to distinguish from fiat currency.

Yes. I'm aware that raising the block size would make the Blockchain more centralized. That's why I've stated that it should be done in the most balanced way possible. Something like slowly incrementing the block size after a few years would do the trick. That's assuming storage/bandwidth costs decline over time. Between BCH and BSV, I think the former is more conservative with its 32mb. But nothing beats the security/decentralization/censorship-resistance of the original Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain.

If everything is done in a "balanced manner", Bitcoin could reach mass adoption in the future. Again, the LN is not a solution to all of Bitcoin's problems. Let the community decide the path forward for this revolutionary kind of money. Who knows if BTC will go as far as replacing Fiat in the future?

[Danydee]

and gives more power to centralized authorities.

Yes. I'm aware that raising the block size would make the Blockchain more centralized.

Excuse me I do not understand..  How or in what maner that is giving power to central authorities ??

Maybe that the non popularity and low mining difficulty could open a way to some parties to put influence on it, but what is the correlation between bthe blocks size and this ?

Spamming network could be stoped by simple parades like for example deciding a reasonable minimum fees price ..

Historically the miners have chosen not adopting the block size increase (which in implementation figuring on the original code of Bitcoin) just to assure themselves a good revenue from fees!  Even Gavin Andresen was very partisan to the block size augmentation and just gave up from BTC after that episode!

[GeorgeJohn]

Their is something I understand in this drama of bitcoin high transactions fees that we experienced now, but it's obvious that anytime bitcoin price is going up alot of people would like to exchange and make a profit because their mindset always being that the increment will not stay long and die off, so therefore the congestion is being that it follows the increment and some times is not caused by miners but many of us even hope that miners is the caused of unconfirmed bitcoin transaction or makes the congestion of bitcoin that warrant the high fee we experience.

[Kemarit]

Their is something I understand in this drama of bitcoin high transactions fees that we experienced now, but it's obvious that anytime bitcoin price is going up alot of people would like to exchange and make a profit because their mindset always being that the increment will not stay long and die off, so therefore the congestion is being that it follows the increment and some times is not caused by miners but many of us even hope that miners is the caused of unconfirmed bitcoin transaction or makes the congestion of bitcoin that warrant the high fee we experience.

I wouldn't call it a drama though, fees are supposedly low before this whole ordinal, BRC-20 exploit on the code and then causing the fees to go up that majority of us are complaining now. So before that, we can transact with at least 1 sat/vB.

But then when someone see a loophole of the code itself and then advantage of it and think that he is doing good cause, everything was broken.

Now it's on the 150's sat/vB again, in the last couple of days it did go down a bit, not much but manageable to some of us.

[Abiky]

Excuse me I do not understand..  How or in what maner that is giving power to central authorities ??

Maybe that the non popularity and low mining difficulty could open a way to some parties to put influence on it, but what is the correlation between bthe blocks size and this ?

Spamming network could be stoped by simple parades like for example deciding a reasonable minimum fees price ..

Historically the miners have chosen not adopting the block size increase (which in implementation figuring on the original code of Bitcoin) just to assure themselves a good revenue from fees!  Even Gavin Andresen was very partisan to the block size augmentation and just gave up from BTC after that episode!

When developers increase the block size, the node software's storage/bandwidth requirements will increase. People will be forced to have powerful machines (PCs) running Bitcoin Core in order to keep up with the huge block size. This will make the network more centralized, because only a small few (mainly wealthy individuals and/or corporations) will be able to afford running a high-powered node. Data centers will be the ones with the most advantage on the Blockchain, leaving the "little guy" (average person) out of the system.

That's why scaling Bitcoin is a very delicate subject. Hopefully, developers will find a way to scale Bitcoin without sacrificing decentralization. The Lightning Network is flawed by design, and utterly-centralized. We can't predict the future, so lets hope for the best. 

[Danydee]

Excuse me I do not understand..  How or in what maner that is giving power to central authorities ??

Maybe that the non popularity and low mining difficulty could open a way to some parties to put influence on it, but what is the correlation between bthe blocks size and this ?

Spamming network could be stoped by simple parades like for example deciding a reasonable minimum fees price ..

Historically the miners have chosen not adopting the block size increase (which in implementation figuring on the original code of Bitcoin) just to assure themselves a good revenue from fees!  Even Gavin Andresen was very partisan to the block size augmentation and just gave up from BTC after that episode!

When developers increase the block size, the node software's storage/bandwidth requirements will increase. People will be forced to have powerful machines (PCs) running Bitcoin Core in order to keep up with the huge block size. This will make the network more centralized, because only a small few (mainly wealthy individuals and/or corporations) will be able to afford running a high-powered node. Data centers will be the ones with the most advantage on the Blockchain, leaving the "little guy" (average person) out of the system.  

Really? I mean nowadays, when you can easily get micro SDs of 1To and 100Mbts line connexion ??

Nowadays everybody is watching the TV over internet!

[Abiky]

Really? I mean nowadays, when you can easily get micro SDs of 1To and 100Mbts line connexion ??

Nowadays everybody is watching the TV over internet!

In developed countries like the US and UK? Yes. But that doesn't apply to people living in developing countries like El Salvador and Argentina. The vast majority of these countries' inhabitants are living in poverty. Keeping Bitcoin accessible to everyone is the best way to ensure decentralization and longevity. Otherwise, we'd be creating another banking system where the "Elite" has all of the advantage.

I'd prefer to pay high network fees, as long as decentralization/censorship-resistance is preserved. If you really want low fees and reduced wait times, then I'd suggest you choose among the plenty of altcoins (or "shitcoins" if you want to call them that) available on the market. Eventually, BTC on-chain fees will settle as the Ordinals craze fades away into oblivion. Developers are already considering how to prevent a further spike in network fees, anyways. As long as everything is done in a "balanced manner", we should have nothing to worry about.