Mempool fees and Solutions

[pooya87]

Bitcoin wouldn't be a censorship-resistant blockchain if you censored and forbid Ordinals. Are they breaking any consensus rules? No.

There are a couple of contradicting views on Ordinals but the only thing that I've seen everyone agree on is that Ordinals is only possible because of an exploit they found in the protocol. This means despite they not breaking the consensus rules, preventing these transactions is fixing that exploit and it is not censorship.

Besides, we've been doing this for as long as bitcoin existed. We've been rejecting transactions that push arbitrary data to the chain (except using the standard OP_RETURN outputs). For example even before SegWit you could use an exploit in the OP_CHECKMULTISIG transactions to push a huge arbitrary data into the chain using the dummy item bug in this OP code. Why wasn't it exploited? Because we've been rejecting any tx that used this vulnerability in the protocol as non-standard.
Just like that was never called censorship, rejecting the Ordinals exploit is not either.

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[Pmalek]

There are a couple of contradicting views on Ordinals but the only thing that I've seen everyone agree on is that Ordinals is only possible because of an exploit they found in the protocol. This means despite they not breaking the consensus rules, preventing these transactions is fixing that exploit and it is not censorship.

I have heard people call it an exploit and a mistake they are taking advantage of before. I don't have the technical background knowledge to understand it, so I can't comment on it. But if it's a mistake (hopefully an easily fixable one), is there any serious work being done on fixing it? Work that would have the support of the majority and doesn't introduce other problems like the Ocean mining pool "fix" did? 

[satscraper]

is there any serious work being done on fixing it? Work that would have the support of the majority and doesn't introduce other problems like the Ocean mining pool "fix" did? 

Luke Dashjr  made an appeal to other developers to put an end to this garbage.

The simplest solution, proposed by Ali Sherief and not even requiring a soft fork, is to install a filter at the node level that would discard all non-standard transactions that have the signs of ordinals and similar junk.

enforce this "censorship" at the node level > and introduce a run-time option to instantly prune all non-standard Taproot transactions.

[BlackHatCoiner]

This means despite they not breaking the consensus rules, preventing these transactions is fixing that exploit and it is not censorship.

It is not censorship to fix an exploit in the protocol, but the way I view this is, you hate being forced to pay high fees and Ordinals is the main cause of this rise in fees.

I'm in favor of fixing this on a standardness level, but please don't hope that this will disappear. There are millions of dollars paid in fees alone, in the last few days. Making them non-standard is not going to censor them. There's already enough demand to bypass this on a standardness level.

The only way to stop it is with a softfork.

[philipma1957]

Doesn't really help much because you still need to open and fund the channel and close it eventually. Both are on-chain transactions and require those currently expensive on-chain fees.

But, maybe that's the only cure. You cannot fit everyone on-chain. If history of cryptocurrencies has taught us something, it's this. I agree that a regulated block size increase might mitigate the problem, but only temporarily. The real solution has to come from a second layer, and sadly, I don't see lightning being that one.

Introducing censorship to lower the fees is definitely not an option. I prefer having terabytes of Ordinals blockchain than that.

If the lightning network is not the second layer solution to Bitcoin, then what is the 2nd layer solution that exists at the moment?
Nothing I guess 

Though the miners may be liking the situation as they get a higher reward on every blocked mine but for the end user (most of us ) would be waiting for the mempool fee to normalize to transact using Bitcoin or some may switch to other coins (for the time being) for cheaper transactions? Unless it is necessary to send Bitcoin, or those rich bodies to whom high fees do not matter,  no one would be using the Bitcoin network at the moment.

your solution is join the exchange kraken do kyc and keep your small change deals with btc on it.

do kyc
deposit cash
buy btc
use their LN

do not keep a lot on the exchange


I also think

you can join nicehash
do kyc
deposit btc from the kraken
use their LN


If you do 10 moves a month it would be $250 or more on the main chain

If you Join Kraken and kyc then join nicehash and kyc

send cash to kraken

buy btc at kraken

send some btc to nicehash


you have 2 LN account to use.



"Of course the companies control your btc not you  and you did kyc"

so do not do a lot of coin

10% of your secure wallet should be enough.  maybe less if you have a lot of coins

[Pmalek]

Luke Dashjr  made an appeal to other developers to put an end to this garbage.

And like I sad previously, he ended up classifying Samourai Whirlpool transactions as non-standard and also censored them. That's for from a good solution. 

The simplest solution, proposed by Ali Sherief and not even requiring a soft fork, is to install a filter at the node level that would discard all non-standard transactions that have the signs of ordinals and similar junk.

But that, again, begs the question, is it going to affect other transactions that shouldn't be restricted just because of their similarity? If the answer is yes, possible, or we don't know, then it's not good enough.

your solution is join the exchange kraken do kyc and keep your small change deals with btc on it.

Their storage of your personal information and sharing with who knows who isn't worth the $250 you will be saving, especially if the data leaked and ended up in the wrong hands one day.

[pooya87]

It is not censorship to fix an exploit in the protocol, but the way I view this is, you hate being forced to pay high fees and Ordinals is the main cause of this rise in fees.

I do hate seeing fees at unreasonable levels which makes it very hard for majority of bitcoin users to use Bitcoin but the reason why I have been against the Ordinals Attack was never because of fees. It was always because this is an abuse since they've turned the payment system called Bitcoin into a cloud storage!

And like I sad previously, he ended up classifying Samourai Whirlpool transactions as non-standard and also censored them. That's for from a good solution. 

Actually their problem with Samourai transactions was related to a limit on OP_RETURN outputs that only Knots enforces and it was not even new. Basically Knots nodes have always been rejecting their transactions.

[pakhitheboss]

I do hate seeing fees at unreasonable levels which makes it very hard for majority of bitcoin users to use Bitcoin but the reason why I have been against the Ordinals Attack was never because of fees. It was always because this is an abuse since they've turned the payment system called Bitcoin into a cloud storage!

I agree with what you are saying, I know that Bitcoin originally was meant to be a payment system. But, what about those who do not think in the same manner within the community? They believe that Bitcoin is an asset and has a store value, and I do agree with them. They do say to counter any question on the high transaction fee as it is just a phase and it will fade away in some time. They said the same thing last time when Ordinals came into existence.

Now, again they are quoting the same dialogue and when questioned they are becoming bullies. I have faced it and I know others who want this spamming of the network to stop have quite questioning them as they might get bullied by someone here in the forum. A concrete solution needs to be in place to stop the network from getting congested in the future. This is not something Sathoshi had originally thought of as Bitcoin was never meant to have an ecosystem of its own. I am not against it but I do not support it when a small-time user comes up here in the forum asking for a solution to the high transaction fees.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Actually their problem with Samourai transactions was related to a limit on OP_RETURN outputs that only Knots enforces and it was not even new. Basically Knots nodes have always been rejecting their transactions.

I must have missed that. Did Luke's pool really censor Samourai whirlpool transactions? I checked their tweets, and to me it rather seems as the Knots nodes always have been rejecting them, but now they own a pool which runs on Knots. Still harmless, because they have mined like what? Three blocks? Their ethos is questionable, though, I get it.

This is not something Sathoshi had originally thought of as Bitcoin was never meant to have an ecosystem of its own.

Actually, Satoshi did consider the development of second layer solutions.

[Pmalek]

@BlackHatCoiner
From what I was told when I asked something similar is that the goal was not to censor Samourai Whirlpool transactions but to stop non-standard transactions and something above 80 bytes, I think. Unfortunately, Samourai transactions fell victim to those restrictions.

[pooya87]

I agree with what you are saying, I know that Bitcoin originally was meant to be a payment system. But, what about those who do not think in the same manner within the community? They believe that Bitcoin is an asset and has a store value, and I do agree with them.

I don't see a contradiction here. Money by definition is a store of value and Bitcoin has the potential to become Money. If some people see Bitcoin as a store of value today, that is not contradicting what Bitcoin was meant to be.

They do say to counter any question on the high transaction fee as it is just a phase and it will fade away in some time. They said the same thing last time when Ordinals came into existence.

There is a difference between traditional spam attacks and this latest one called Ordinals.

In traditional spam attacks like the one we endured during 2017 the fee market eventually puts an stop to the attack as it keeps increasing the cost of the attack and the attacker has to cover that cost out of their own pockets.
Also in traditional attacks, the attacker can not get regular people to participate in their attacks.

However, in case of Ordinals this is not a traditional spam attack. It is a spam attack where attackers are going to have the possibility of making a profit if they participate in the attack! You see Ordinals is arbitrary data and is NOT a token, however they've made a fake market selling basically the transaction calling them "tokens" and they pump these things in their scam market.
This means unlike traditional spam attacks, the attackers could successfully get regular people to participate in that attack because the scam market gives them an incentive. That "incentive" also means this attack is not going to be a temporary phase that fades away.

[satscraper]

However, in case of Ordinals this is not a traditional spam attack. It is a spam attack where attackers are going to have the possibility of making a profit if they participate in the attack! You see Ordinals is arbitrary data and is NOT a token, however they've made a fake market selling basically the transaction calling them "tokens" and they pump these things in their scam market.
This means unlike traditional spam attacks, the attackers could successfully get regular people to participate in that attack because the scam market gives them an incentive. That "incentive" also means this attack is not going to be a temporary phase that fades away.

It may be a spam attack encouraged by the mining-pools-plotters the aim being to make profit from increased fee.  With that single, those plotters raised the ante as to what a block-acceptable-transaction-fee should be, thus,  forcing "regular people to participate in that attack".

Why not consider the possibility of such conspiracy?

[Pmalek]

It may be a spam attack encouraged by the mining-pools-plotters the aim being to make profit from increased fee.  With that single, those plotters raised the ante as to what a block-acceptable-transaction-fee should be, thus,  forcing "regular people to participate in that attack".

Why not consider the possibility of such conspiracy?

It's a spam attack by the supporters of bigger blocks. In that group, you can put anyone from the people connected to Bitcoin Cash to all the other knock-offs that came after it. It's their way of 'punishing' Bitcoin. It's also an attempt to show the world that Bitcoin is no longer a useful P2P electronic money because it has become too expensive. I never cared to check, but do we have these inscriptions on Bitcoin Cash and the newer forks and derivations from it? My guess is no. 

[pakhitheboss]

Actually, Satoshi did consider the development of second layer solutions.

I was not aware of this information as I knew Bitcoin creation was to be a payment processor with privacy as the top priority. Unfortunately that ethos has got lost and now it has become something else.

I don't see a contradiction here. Money by definition is a store of value and Bitcoin has the potential to become Money. If some people see Bitcoin as a store of value today, that is not contradicting what Bitcoin was meant to be.

Money as in the fiat currency does have an intrinsic value that grows when earned. Whereas Bitcoin does not have an intrinsic value, it depends on how the market treats it with the amount of trade being made by everyone. I should have clarified this part while replying to the post, thanks for the question.

It's a spam attack by the supporters of bigger blocks. In that group, you can put anyone from the people connected to Bitcoin Cash to all the other knock-offs that came after it. It's their way of 'punishing' Bitcoin. It's also an attempt to show the world that Bitcoin is no longer a useful P2P electronic money because it has become too expensive. I never cared to check, but do we have these inscriptions on Bitcoin Cash and the newer forks and derivations from it? My guess is no. 

Can't there be a way found to this spam attack? The developers can increase the block size and thus the congestion and high transaction fee can be solved. Is this something that can be done or it is not possible?

[Pmalek]

Can't there be a way found to this spam attack? The developers can increase the block size and thus the congestion and high transaction fee can be solved. Is this something that can be done or it is not possible?

It can be done with a fork but they don't want to do that. A hard fork splits the community in two, and it's near impossible to get everyone onboard and supporting the same idea. A block size increase can solve the current congestion issue but bring about other potential problems. You will have to consider a bigger chain, which means more storage space for everyone running full nodes. Storage devices aren't as expensive as a decade ago, but it could still cause greater centralization where those willing to pay for it will continue running nodes, while those who can't/don't want to might give up. Theory also says that a block size increase could increase the number of orphaned blocks. 

[philipma1957]

I agree with what you are saying, I know that Bitcoin originally was meant to be a payment system. But, what about those who do not think in the same manner within the community? They believe that Bitcoin is an asset and has a store value, and I do agree with them.

I don't see a contradiction here. Money by definition is a store of value and Bitcoin has the potential to become Money. If some people see Bitcoin as a store of value today, that is not contradicting what Bitcoin was meant to be.

They do say to counter any question on the high transaction fee as it is just a phase and it will fade away in some time. They said the same thing last time when Ordinals came into existence.

There is a difference between traditional spam attacks and this latest one called Ordinals.

In traditional spam attacks like the one we endured during 2017 the fee market eventually puts an stop to the attack as it keeps increasing the cost of the attack and the attacker has to cover that cost out of their own pockets.
Also in traditional attacks, the attacker can not get regular people to participate in their attacks.

However, in case of Ordinals this is not a traditional spam attack. It is a spam attack where attackers are going to have the possibility of making a profit if they participate in the attack! You see Ordinals is arbitrary data and is NOT a token, however they've made a fake market selling basically the transaction calling them "tokens" and they pump these things in their scam market.
This means unlike traditional spam attacks, the attackers could successfully get regular people to participate in that attack because the scam market gives them an incentive. That "incentive" also means this attack is not going to be a temporary phase that fades away.

If you are or are not a btc max guy. you need to get into the LN network. Use the LN network.


Kraken allows use of its LN network.

do KYC put in a small amount of cash. Buy some BTC and use their LN network .


Nicehash allows it.

I have Two LN wallets to access . sends are cheap.

I am well aware of  “not you keys not your coins”

So if you have 50,000 usd in btc  keep 48,000 or even 49,000 in a secure wallet. 💳

and a small amount 1,000 or 2,000 in LN exchanges for small spending.

[dkbit98]

Kraken allows use of its LN network.

It's not only Kraken, there are several other big exchanges that support LN including Binance, Bitfinex, Okex, etc.
But you don't need those exchanges to buy and sell Bitcoin, when there is p2p alternatives, Bisq exchange, AgoraDesk, and Robosats also works with Lightning Network and they don't have any kyc.
Another solid alternative is second layer Liquid Network with L-BTC and L-USDT that has much lower fees.

[Findingnemo]

Kraken allows use of its LN network.

It's not only Kraken, there are several other big exchanges that support LN including Binance, Bitfinex, Okex, etc.
But you don't need those exchanges to buy and sell Bitcoin, when there is p2p alternatives, Bisq exchange, AgoraDesk, and Robosats also works with Lightning Network and they don't have any kyc.

These p2p also suports LN withdrawals? I only use Paxful which is KYC p2p still it only has LN deposit festure not the withdrawal.

Exchanges have it like philipma1957 said but AFAIk LN withdrawals are available only for KYCed users and its good choice too compared to paying $10 as a fee for sending a $50 payment.


I am not sure it's been mentioned here already in case not yet then please note that Viabtc reduced 100 free slots per hour to 20 slots per hour and bots take over everything so its no longer an option now.

By the order of submission, ViaBTC supports 20 FREE acceleration chances per hour.

[dkbit98]

These p2p also suports LN withdrawals? I only use Paxful which is KYC p2p still it only has LN deposit festure not the withdrawal.

Robosats supports them for sure, but I am not sure about other services.
I think that HodlHodl is good alternative for Paxful and it should be supporting Lightning Network.
Exch.cx is another little centralized exchange that added LN, and they won't ask you for any verification.
I think more exchanges and services will also add support for Liquid Network soon.

[pooya87]

If you are or are not a btc max guy. you need to get into the LN network. Use the LN network.

What does LN have to do with anything?
The attack against Bitcoin network has to be stopped with or without LN. Suggesting people ignore the ongoing attack and just look for alternative ways to not be affected by it is ignorant not to mention that second layers still requires on-chain settlement which is made extremely difficult because of this attack.