So, this madness will never end, will it?

[BlackHatCoiner]

I don't think we've gotten to a point where we need runes to fill up the mempool and churn out regular transactions to keep it that way.

I only know that if this space is not filled, there will not be block space competition, which is necessary for Bitcoin. I don't care what's been filled, because I'm in no position to decide what's considered "regular" or "real use".

If we need indirect transactions to keep the mempool alive, the network will already be dead.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the network's survival will largely depend on "indirect transactions", such on-boarding funds to L2 solutions. Since there is no tail emission and we're not tinkering with the block size limit, there cannot be sufficient space for millions of people on-chain, on a daily basis. If Bitcoin is to achieve mainstream adoption, most users will be far more familiar with L2 solutions, than L1.

[CroverNo01]

As long as people are making money off of runes, I don't think that we will never see an end to this kind of stuff, it's already been too long for this kind of stuff already and I don't get the hype of it, it's not even making it big in the crypto space and people aren't talking too much about it in a good way so it's really weird that they've persisted for so long. @d5000 is right though, it's a slow death because eventually, people would get tired of it and I do hope that it does, maybe when a new thing in crypto happens, we would see a total decline with runes and inscriptions in crypto, for people that are still doing this, they must really hate other people using bitcoin for transactions so they do their best to slow down the network.

Bitcoin is major project in the space, I tried as much as possible to avoid this network when it comes to fees, always preparing for the worst scenario in the system. What are we after in the crypto space? We're after our portfolios growing bigger as the bull and bear season passes by. We care less about the fees although it's ought to be take into consideration. Personally I always go for cheaper fees because that's the main thing target that reduce cost entirely. On the other hand, Crypto is complex to understand and dealing with comes with a whole set of basis. The space will not stop for anything, we having more vastly increased numbers when it comes to this projects and fees.

[Synchronice]

Seeing fees at below 2sat/vb and blocks still packed with tiny runes tx I was curious what do these people still minting nowadays, as the other obvious question, why in the name of god they still do will probably never have an answer.

I think that when people see that images of Dumb Apes get sold for millions of dollars, then they try to inscribe something dumb and dumber with the hope that they'll sell it for millions of dollars. There is no other better explanation.

I feel like we're coming close to a paradox scenario where cheap fees allow everything to be written in the chain while preventing the mempool to ever be empty while at the same time having little to no actual usage in terms of real transfers because what's cheap for people wanting to engrave their legacy on the chain much like they do when scribbling their name on monuments will still be too expensive for day to day shopping.

At the moment, ordinals aren't popular. If every starts inscribing like they did this winter, then we will again have a scenario where making a basic transaction costs $30 or higher.

To me, an empty mempool is a bad sign, and I hope we never experience one again. Yes, it allows me to make cheap on-chain transfers, but the bigger issue is that it indicates people aren't using Bitcoin, which will ultimately impact not just me, but the entire network.

I don't mind what's being broadcasted, as long as it pays a sufficient fee. An empty mempool is a sign of a dead network.

When people inscribe ordinals, they aren't actually using Bitcoin too, so the only difference between this state and that state is that in that state when people use Bitcoin for inscribing ordinals, transaction costs for Bitcoin users increase. By the way, at the moment, there are only 150K unconfirmed transactions, that's a pretty normal number. I prefer quality over quantity.
By the way, mempool full of ordinals and empty from regular transactions, is also a sign of a dead network. I hope that time never comes.

[goldkingcoiner]

I feel like we're coming close to a paradox scenario where cheap fees allow everything to be written in the chain while preventing the mempool to ever be empty while at the same time having little to no actual usage in terms of real transfers because what's cheap for people wanting to engrave their legacy on the chain much like they do when scribbling their name on monuments will still be too expensive for day to day shopping.

I expect that the inscribing will go out of fashion and nobody will care to buy that crap any longer.

I agree.

Like with everything that has no actual use, it will go away as soon as people get bored of it. People eventually start to think for themselves, even if they are way to wealthy to care about wasting money.

[stompix]

Revisiting this for some mixed reasons, since I started this thread 4 days ago 200 more runes have been issued, as far as I understand it's just the issuance not that are fully minted, but despite that the numbers growing by only 50 per day means that we're seeing a pace of 10% of the average for the last year, which is encouraging.

The bad news is that the weekend went by and the mempool didn't decrease at all because some morons are actually moving those by the thousands, in transactions that look like consolidation but in reality, it's just masive amounts of those things. This is how the 3rd block in waiting looks right now because of these:

To me, an empty mempool is a bad sign, and I hope we never experience one again. Yes, it allows me to make cheap on-chain transfers, but the bigger issue is that it indicates people aren't using Bitcoin, which will ultimately impact not just me, but the entire network.

I don't mind what's being broadcasted, as long as it pays a sufficient fee. An empty mempool is a sign of a dead network.

If you remove runes and ordinals then the mempool will look dead, and I don't understand why things that are minted just for a possible cash grab would support the impression of a healthy network, this would be no different than BSV adding weather reports or whatever they did back then to fake activity!

[nakamura12]

If people will earn money from it then it won't stop until no one is buying it. It is entirely because people earn money from it so they mint things they think will make them earn a lot of money from it.

Crypto is full of people trying to become the next millionaire in shortest time possible and that sadly includes Bitcoin as well, so now we all have to see the degen behavior of people like these in the Bitcoin blockchain too as the Ethereum / Solana blockchains are already ruined. So yes, this madness will never end and will continue to be here

I could say the same thing and because of that, they started to create something new that will result to an issue like what OP explained about transactions in mempool. It actually help the miners but it is not good for some people especially the size of the blockchain will be in the future.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If you remove runes and ordinals then the mempool will look dead, and I don't understand why things that are minted just for a possible cash grab would support the impression of a healthy network

Because "being healthy" does not specify what people should be doing with their bitcoin. It only indicates that the network is sustainable. I don't care if in 20 years, Runes or or something else clogs the mempool, as long as there is sufficient transaction volume.

this would be no different than BSV adding weather reports or whatever they did back then to fake activity!

Not the same. BSV isn't sustainable, even with the weather reports.

[d5000]

If you remove runes and ordinals then the mempool will look dead, and I don't understand why things that are minted just for a possible cash grab would support the impression of a healthy network,

Even during the recent small wave (late September/early October), Runes and Ordinals combined made up less than 15% of the block space. CryptoKoryo unfortunately doesn't show the space occupied by the different tx categories directly, but it shows the proportion of the fees, and fees are proportional to space, not to transactions:


Source: CryptoKoryo

This means that since the drop in Runes/Ordinals activity in mid-2024 the activity of payment transactions seems to be higher than ever. Until early 2023, blocks with unoccupied space were very common and fees regularly plummeted to 1 sat/vByte.

This is the block size evolution since 2020:


Source: YCharts

We see that we're currently around 1,55-1,6 MB. This means constantly about 1,3 - 1,35 MB payment transactions (85% of the total size). Before the Ordinals boom, only once (in the bubble in late 2021) values about 1.3 MB were reached before in Bitcoin's history.

So I see nothing "unhealthy" and much less "dead" going on currently.

[coolcoinz]

People hodling > low amount of transactions > low fees.
In time when bitcoin goes through another ATH then another halving and another ATH, the number of holders will only go up, while the fees and coin supply on exchanges will go down. I feel like this is the way we're heading and if these people want to pay to write bitcoin dog all day, I guess we have to deal with it.

Life goes on and stupidity remains. I treat this the same way I treat people who waste their money on other stupid and useless things, for instance tattooing stupid stuff on their bodies, like their names. Imagine that some people pay to have their name written on their chest. If they can do that, someone will surely pay to write something stupid in a block.

[stompix]

Not the same. BSV isn't sustainable, even with the weather reports.

Why?
It's the same thing, income from fees and block reward transformed into hashrate!
You just said it doesn't matter how and where the money comes from!

Even during the recent small wave (late September/early October), Runes and Ordinals combined made up less than 15% of the block space. CryptoKoryo unfortunately doesn't show the space occupied by the different tx categories directly, but it shows the proportion of the fees, and fees are proportional to space, not to transactions:


Source: CryptoKoryo

I am going to take that graph with a bit of salt, in one graph Runes have 16% of the total as of October 5th, and on the detailed view they have 183k transfers and mining for the same date, which would lead to 1.1 million transactions for that date and I'm sure we never got that high for anywhere close these few days. So it is 126k as in another graph or 183k?

Sidenote, someone decided to consolidate 20vMB of transactions so we spiked to over 20sat/vb for a few blocks and kept hitting over 10 for two hours, I think we have such a backlog of consolidations it won't be over even by Christmas!

[BlackHatCoiner]

It's the same thing, income from fees and block reward transformed into hashrate!

Just because it might have a few blocks filled sometimes doesn't make it sustainable. A network with hard cap is sustainable only if it's actively clogged up. Full blocks are only a consequence of the former. I highly doubt BSV is ever clogged up, since mempool clears everything every few minutes.

[shield132]

Seeing fees at below 2sat/vb and blocks still packed with tiny runes tx I was curious what do these people still minting nowadays, as the other obvious question, why in the name of god they still do will probably never have an answer.

~snip~

Yup, so besides SUGARBEAR•BTC•DOG, SUGARBEAR•THE•BTC•DOG, THE•BITCOIN•DOG•SUGARBEAR, THE•BTC•DOG•SUGARBEAR, SUGARBEAR•THE•BITCOIN•DOG, BTC•DOG•SUGARBEAR *no, I'm not joking about the names, they actually exist) we have now the alphabet people trying to see how many combinations of random letters can be inscribed in the chain!
And if you're wondering about the numbers, yes we have close to 120 000 runes now in the chain!

I feel like we're coming close to a paradox scenario where cheap fees allow everything to be written in the chain while preventing the mempool to ever be empty while at the same time having little to no actual usage in terms of real transfers because what's cheap for people wanting to engrave their legacy on the chain much like they do when scribbling their name on monuments will still be too expensive for day to day shopping.

First of all, reality today is different. If years ago you had to study hard, finish university and work hard to earn money and achieve your dreams, today that doesn't work. Today, if you want to earn lots of money and become popular, you have to be dumb. There is a guy in my country that makes dumb thing in front of people on social media platforms and he earns lots of money, receives lots of donations to do a dance, to eat something and etc...
What an average person knows about NFT and Ordinals is that if they mint something, they own it. When the average person sees that the best-selling stuff is pixelated phunk, a circle, a dot, an egg, a frog, some words and etc and someone earns millions of dollars by creating them, then it's logical if they try to inscribe every possible dumb image or word because everyone wants to earn lots of money easily. I think it's obvious that what I described is the reason behind the popularity of ordinals because I have never ever seen something smart on Ordiscan.

This madness will not end till dumb people and dumb things are getting fame and money.