Thread

I think JPEGs on the timechain are stupid. But the idea that they're going to hurt Bitcoin seems so weak to me. Like the US dollar can withstand people scribbling on it but Bitcoin can't? In fact, the idea of Bitcoin as a glorious digital monument with some graffiti scribbled on it represents humanity pretty well. That's kind of us in a nutshell. Seems on-brand. Perfectionists trying to keep their little gardens tidy while trolls come in and find ways to mess with them anyway. NFTs and memecoins already had their peak fad moments. People now know that they're non-scarce gambling toys rather than investments. It's just echoes of that peak now. The only thing that concerned me about the ordinals/runes period was the rapid UTXO bloat, not the blockspace usage, since the latter already has a consensus limit on it. And if Bitcoin transactions can't outprice JPEGs in the long run, then it's just not that valuable. Bitcoin currently does about 1% of the gross settlement volume of Fedwire. That's peanuts. Imagine if it reaches a point where it does even like 10% of Fedwire. What would you pay to move a full bitcoin globally, permissionlessly, in 10 minutes, in a world where it's no longer a niche thing?

Replies (53)

Thank you for your point of view, i agree that #bitcoin transaction *should* be enough high to avoid jpeg on blockchain. But we are not speaking only about jpeg but every other use that could delay transactions. Nakamoto has a vision for #bitcoin and he explained and made his vision a reality. We are not "fighting" here to know if a block can handle or not some extra data like jpeg. We are "fighting" here to know if the blockchain is enough secure for futures attacks. You know attacks like "put your birthdate and name on the blochain for 15$" for the newbee. And the operator that want to do that just need few space for 15$ to do it (but with a lot of customer it could take a lot of space in a block). Perhaps it is a stupid example. Perhaps it will not happen this way. But be sure that if there is no filter and just a "hope" that spam will be stopped by fees, it is a big lack of vision. #bitcoin is used to transfer value from a wallet to another, it has be built for this use and it is more and more use for this with time. If you don't have any vision about how to preserve that, it will be a huge danger for the legit transactions in future. When the perfect high value spam will delay legit transactions because they will find a way to make their spam enough valuable to be push in the blockchain. And it is not acceptable that fees would be over-high for legit transactions. I am not saying you can't put "extra data" on the blockchain, but it MUST be a way to preserve legit transaction and not only rely on fees. It is a lack of vision to just "hope" it will be enough. Thanks for your share. #btc4ever
Is it the case that the current world order with regard to the dollar being the world reserve currency is breaking down? The tariffs and the sanctions and the increasing fragility of the treasury market makes me wonder if cross border Capital flows are signaling that it is The Sterling went away [it took several decades] and the dollar took over and then the dollar changed a couple times from gold to oil to ... whatever it is now So now it's [apparently, maybe] time for a new financial system to take over the planet again like it does every 50 years or so What are the odds that it will be bitcoin based?
↩ replying to HonestMoney
Well damn. I considered storing information on the blockchain before, (email specifically) but I never fully considered the implications. I want to see what happens if people start uploading CP to the Bitcoin blockchain. Would it damage the price of Bitcoin? Would chain analysis tools be restricted? Or would it get people to rethink the reasonableness of child porn laws? Personally I trust the mantra "nothing ever happens." People would just pretend that the child porn doesn't exist, or come up with a retarded rationalization for why it doesn't count.
↩ replying to armstrys
How much effort does it take to run Knots instead of Core and choose my settings? I’ve already made the switch, and I can tell you it doesn’t take much. Making this change ISN’T useless. No, my one node won’t do much to fix this issue (beyond my node), but I voted with my feet by leaving Core over an issue that’s important. Each node operator can cast their own vote regarding this issue based on which software they choose to run. The ability to choose is an important right…and the big migration to Knots in recent weeks is a really important start!
↩ replying to Hoshi
I refuse. Price caps are immoral. Besides, there are already laws against pirating child porn and there are many who still break those laws. Even if the state made price caps, most sellers would probably just ignore the price caps. Alas, all that tax revenue falls through the state's fingers. Ah well, the biggest cost of child porn is to children's modesty anyway, so it's not really something we can extract or control anyway. Not to virtue signal or anything. Also, if I'm going to run for public office just to make AI generated CP depicting a public official, why not just run for office and then make child porn the old fasioned way? Faith in public officials would be in shambles...
Comparing scribbles on a bank note to spam on bitcoin is bizarre, comparing apples to oranges. Scribbles on a bank note do nothing to affect its functioning, while excessive spam absolutely affects/would affect bitcoin’s functionality. Calling monetary maximalists β€œperfectionists” is another bizarre comparison. Wanting to keep bitcoin for monetary use over arbitrary data storage use has nothing to do with perfectionism. Appreciate your concern for UTXO bloat, it’s real. But thinking that spam had its β€œpeak” is misguided imo. Perhaps you haven’t seen the spammers chomping at the bit to have OP_RETURN limit removed, OP_CAT and a slew of other op codes added? Just like there was a spam lull in late β€˜23, they lay low for a while and then return with force when they have some new way to fuck the timechain. Thinking scammers are done with bitcoin is exceedingly wishful.. (I hope I’m wrong and you can say I told you so!) Bitcoin transactions will eventually outprice JPEGs *if* bitcoin still works. At the root of this whole issue is miner centralization, so perhaps we can agree to work on supporting mining re-decentralization as ultimately critical to bitcoins long-term sustainability (and that will help take care of the spam issue as well)?
Then why bitcoin fix satoshi dice? Do you think bitcoin could survive with satoshi dice?
Lyn Alden's avatar Lyn Alden
I think JPEGs on the timechain are stupid. But the idea that they're going to hurt Bitcoin seems so weak to me. Like the US dollar can withstand people scribbling on it but Bitcoin can't? In fact, the idea of Bitcoin as a glorious digital monument with some graffiti scribbled on it represents humanity pretty well. That's kind of us in a nutshell. Seems on-brand. Perfectionists trying to keep their little gardens tidy while trolls come in and find ways to mess with them anyway. NFTs and memecoins already had their peak fad moments. People now know that they're non-scarce gambling toys rather than investments. It's just echoes of that peak now. The only thing that concerned me about the ordinals/runes period was the rapid UTXO bloat, not the blockspace usage, since the latter already has a consensus limit on it. And if Bitcoin transactions can't outprice JPEGs in the long run, then it's just not that valuable. Bitcoin currently does about 1% of the gross settlement volume of Fedwire. That's peanuts. Imagine if it reaches a point where it does even like 10% of Fedwire. What would you pay to move a full bitcoin globally, permissionlessly, in 10 minutes, in a world where it's no longer a niche thing?
View quoted note →
>And if Bitcoin transactions can't outprice >JPEGs in the long run, then it's just not that >valuable. The demand for *arbitrary* data is gigantically larger than monetary data. Bitcoin the money will never be able to compete with that, and expecting it to do so is just stupid. Especially if we take the time dependency into account. The monetary use case proves its value in the Long Run (as fiat systems gradually start to fail one by one in the future). But by the time we reach the point we actually need it, it could well be already dead - because it was just dominated by garbage in the meantime and ppl stop running nodes for this type of junk.
↩ replying to Lyn Alden
The bigger issue than size is utxo bloat. Which admittedly OP_RETURN doesn't really do anything to fix in either direction, because after a modest size is reached, the segwit discount makes it cheaper to bloat the utxo set than to use OP_RETURN anyway. The current uproar is definitely not an existential argument. I'm glad it's shining more light on Knots though, which I was already using anyway, and also on the governance issues around having a monopoly on node development. We need alternatives that are maintained in a robust manner, precisely to offset any centralization of power in the hands of whoever controls a given github account. And sure, you can always just not upgrade your software...for awhile. Eventually security fixes come out, and then you get to decide whether to stay vulnerable or to do whatever that cabal has told you to do. Not an ideal situation.
One of the smartest ideas behind Bitcoin is keeping the network small and efficient. JPEGs and heavy data clog the timechain and raise storage needs β€” that’s not what Bitcoin was built for. If we wanted that, we could just tokenize files and let Google or another giant host them. The real value of Bitcoin is decentralization β€” validating transactions without trusting a centralized company. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose entirely.
↩ replying to Zach⚑️
Node runners: making changes that will inevitably lead to contiguous blobs of CSAM stored in blocks will bring unnecessary scrutiny from governments and likely make it a moral and legal liability since I can reasonably be described as someone hosting and distributing CSAM. With this in mind, it might be prudent not to make this contentious change on the next revision of Core. Lyn: I don’t think JPEGs will kill bitcoin, in a way it is a reflection of our society. 🫠 Like wut??