The meme coin and NFT trading phenomena on Bitcoin caused by Ordinals have led to a massive spike in transaction fees and blockchain congestion. In response, at least one developer has proposed a solution to address this issue.
Luke Dashjr, a leading Bitcoin code contributor on Github, emailed other Bitcoin developers and miners, suggesting the implementation of “spam filtration” as a part of Taproot transactions to block Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens. Dashjr expressed that action should have been taken months ago, stating that “Spam filtration has been a standard part of Bitcoin Core since day 1.”
According to Dashjr, this change must be imposed either through a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) or as an update to the network’s Core client used by node operators and miners to validate transactions. Interestingly, he also noted that the filter could be implemented immediately as a “bugfix” and doesn’t necessarily need to wait for the “major release” or soft fork.
However, the proposal has been met with mixed reactions, especially from the crypto community on Twitter. DeGods NFT project founder Frank received harsh criticism upon sharing the email. Among the notable replies was one from Kraken’s NFT product lead, Washington Sanchez, who referred to Dashjr’s efforts as a “1 man jihad against Ordinals.” Sanchez expressed doubt that other developers would take Dashjr’s proposal seriously, given Bitcoin is working as expected when valid transactions are submitted.
James Loppson, the CTO of Casa, also chimed in, clarifying that Dashjr does not represent the entire developer community by stating, “LOL at anyone who tries to claim that Luke is representative of anyone other than Luke.”
Meanwhile, on the public Bitcoin forum bitcointalk.org, some members expressed disappointment over using Bitcoin for purposes other than transferring value. Nonetheless, an urgent need to add an Ordinal filter could not be gleaned from the discussion. One developer suggested that while developers acknowledge this issue’s importance, it is unlikely that they will take any action. Instead, the responsibility falls on “the rest of us to make Layer 2 implementations.”
In conclusion, the debate on the implementation of a spam filter for Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens has generated polarizing opinions from prominent figures within the crypto community. As it stands, it remains to be seen whether the proposed changes will gain enough momentum to be enforced into the Bitcoin protocol.
Source: Decrypt
