Bitcoin NFT Debate: Developer’s Move Against Ordinals

A recent tweet by developer Luke Dashjr has ignited a contentious debate within the crypto community. Dashjr’s concerns revolve around the exploitation of a feature called “Inscriptions” within Bitcoin Core, which he argues is manipulating a vulnerability.

Exploiting Bitcoin’s Weakness
Dashjr highlighted that Bitcoin Core, since 2013, has allowed users to set transaction data limits. However, he pointed out that Inscriptions are sidestepping these limits by masquerading data as program code.

Developer Divide Over Ordinals
In a move to address this issue, Dashjr submitted a pull request to the Bitcoin Core Github repository in September. This proposal has triggered a range of opinions among developers. Some fear its potential impact on miner earnings and the encouragement of private memory pools. Conversely, others anticipate a reduction in node burden. While Bitcoin Core maintainer Gloria Zhao didn’t oppose the proposal, she suggested incorporating tests. As of now, the fate of the pull request remains uncertain.

Implications of Luke’s Changes
Luke’s adjustments in Knots entail constraining data sizes within transactions. If these alterations are adopted into Bitcoin Core, it could restrict the ecosystem to assets with minimal on-chain footprints. Although Bitcoin Core v25.1 grants miners the choice to include sizable transactions, the financial incentives make it improbable for them to opt out.

Proposal’s Effect on $ORDI
Should the proposal gain acceptance, it could potentially prompt a surge in the value of existing Ordinals collections, as the creation of new Bitcoin NFTs would cease. However, the $ORDI token, which has previously seen considerable growth, experienced a negative impact following the news, marking a 7% decline in the last 24 hours.