In a peculiar development within the Bitcoin community, a contributor to Taproot Wizards, an art collection immortalized by Bitcoin Ordinals, claims to have devised a method for Bitcoin enthusiasts to reject Ordinals inscriptions. This individual contributing to Taproot Wizards, operating under the pseudonym Rijndael, serves as the chief technology officer for the firm. On December 26, Rijndael shared a script designed to prompt nodes to reject blocks containing inscriptions.
Taproot Wizards’ script to reject ordinals in Bitcoin nodes
The suggestion is that if the majority of nodes adopt this stance, miners would likely choose to build on a chain without inscriptions or sell into a smaller market. In a somewhat provocative tone, the Taproot Wizards contributor challenged critics of Ordinals, urging them to run the script or acknowledge that they are merely virtue signaling on Twitter without a genuine interest in stopping inscriptions. He emphasized that he provided a solution and that users choosing not to implement it would bear the responsibility for their decision. On the GitHub repository page, Rijndael further exaggeratedly mocked Ordinals critics.
Despite this bold move, Glassnode’s lead analyst, known as “Checkmate” on X, expressed skepticism about the script gaining traction. Checkmate argued that the software was likely created to illustrate that most critics of Ordinals are in the minority. He explained that the available software can invalidate Ordinals on a user’s node but pointed out that it essentially renders the node unusable as Ordinals transactions are valid. According to Checkmate, this demonstration highlights the ongoing standoff that characterizes Bitcoin governance.
Ordinals debate and solutions on the horizon
The Taproot Wizards contributor admitted that he spent around 15 minutes creating the software and acknowledged that the script could be easily circumvented by altering an Ordinal fingerprint. The Ordinals censorship debate surfaced when Bitcoin mining firm OCEAN, led by Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr, began rejecting Ordinals transactions due to concerns about denial-of-service attacks and increased mempool congestion. Opinions within the Bitcoin community diverge on the potential impact of Ordinals.
Some argue that if Ordinals-induced mempool congestion remains stable and predictable, it could benefit Lightning transactions and users. An anonymous Bitcoin Core developer explained that stable congestion cycles enable Lightning users to allocate more liquidity off-chain. On the contrary, if Ordinals transaction volumes become unpredictable, it could pose challenges for Lightning users. Unpredictable mempool congestion might result from short marketing cycles associated with ordinal inscriptions, ultimately downgrading the Lightning user experience.
Looking ahead, as Bitcoin Core is slated to be updated to its 27th version in 2024, developers could implement a solution to mitigate Ordinals volumes. One proposed idea involves requiring Ordinals users to pay a higher base minimum relay fee to maintain equilibrium in CPU and bandwidth resource consumption for full-node operators. The Bitcoin community finds itself in a curious situation with a contributor proposing a script to reject Ordinals inscriptions. However, skepticism persists about the script gaining widespread adoption, and the debate over the impact of Ordinals on the Bitcoin ecosystem continues, with potential solutions on the horizon as the protocol evolves.
