Core

2024

Bitcoin

<p><strong>No consensus has yet been reached on the issue of “inscriptions.” Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s decentralization is dwindling day by day.</strong></p>
<h2 id="what-s-the-problem">What’s the problem?</h2>
<p>We recently reported that the Bitcoin Core developers were (and remain) <a href="https://www.cointribune.com/en/bitcoin-core-developers-under-fire-from-critics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">under scrutiny</a>. Finally, one of them spoke up on Peter McCormack’s podcast <em>What Bitcoin did</em>.</p>
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<p>But first, let’s recap what we’re talking about. Inscriptions are arbitrary data that are foreign to the bitcoin protocol. The most well-known are “ordinals”. They are image files (Jpeg) that lodge inside transaction scripts by masquerading as public keys.</p>
<p>The concept is based on the “ordinals theory.” That is, a convention outside the protocol that theoretically maps the ordinals through a <a href="https://www.cointribune.com/ordinaux-attaque-ou-innovation-bienvenue/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">virtual numbering of satoshis</a>.</p>
<p>These inscriptions are widely criticized and often described as scams that destroy the network’s decentralization. Therefore, they must also be considered an <a href="https://www.cointribune.com/en/bitcoin-hit-hard-by-a-dos-attack/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">attack</a>.</p>
<p>On one hand, we have ordinals (very large Jpegs) that have the harmful consequence of bloating the size of the blockchain. On the other hand, we have even more toxic inscriptions, the “STAMPS,” which generate phenomenal amounts of utxo.</p>
<p>[Utxos are small pieces of code that mathematically link your bitcoins to your BTC addresses (your public keys).]</p>
<p>As a result, you need at least 600 GB of memory to run a full node today, and the number of utxo has more than doubled in just one year! There are now 180 million utxos, which is about 10 GB.</p>
<p>The utxo problem does not stem so much from the memory required (although that too…), but more so from the elongated time of IBD (Initial Blockchain Download).</p>
<h2 id="bitcoin-ibd">Bitcoin IBD</h2>
<p>Inscriptions significantly extend the time needed to install a node. This is clearly evident from the tests recently conducted by <a href="https://twitter.com/GrassFedBitcoin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">@GrassFedBitcoin</a>:</p>
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     <p lang="en" dir="ltr">26 hours to get to Feb 2023.<br><br>Another ~55 hours and I'm still not synced.<br><br>Last year's explosion of UTXOs made IBD a pain in the ass. <a href="https://t.co/DhJU5K4evR" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">pic.twitter.com/DhJU5K4evR</a></p>— Mechanic #FixTheFilters (@GrassFedBitcoin) <a href="https://twitter.com/GrassFedBitcoin/status/1788798634252759499?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">May 10, 2024</a>
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<p><em>“It took me 26 hours to download the entire blockchain up to February 2023, and an additional 55 hours for last year alone. The surge in the number of utxos makes the IBD time extremely laborious”</em>, states the founder of the <a href="https://www.cointribune.com/?attachment_id=166543" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ocean</a> pool.</p>
<p><em>“The situation is far worse than before. We’re talking about several orders of magnitude. This is not FUD. The more we turn a blind eye [to the inscriptions] the faster we accelerate the centralization of the bitcoin network. At this rate, we’re adding more than 48 hours of IBD time every year.”</em></p>
<p>Put another way, it will take 24 days to set up a node in just a decade. And that’s even considering the processing power of the Raspberry Pi doubles every four years.</p>
<p>[The Raspberry Pi is a nano-sized computer about the size of a large pack of cigarettes that allows you to install the Bitcoin Core software to run your node and thus participate in the decentralization of bitcoin]</p>
<p><em>“In 2022, I could complete the IBD in less than 48 hours with a simple Raspberry Pi 4. I’m now using a Raspberry Pi 5 whose processor is twice as powerful. The Pi 5 can reduce the processing time of the same amount of data by 50%. And despite this, the IBD has taken over 82 hours instead of 48!”</em>.</p>
<p>These figures are alarming. Do we really want to extend the time to set up a node to several weeks? Not to mention countries where internet connectivity is far from Western standards.</p>
<h2 id="h-what-is-bitcoin-core-doing">What is Bitcoin Core doing?</h2>
<p>The question of inscriptions was, of course, posed to Gloria Zhao, one of the five developers whose PGP key allows them to publish Bitcoin Core updates on Github (twice a year). She is the least experienced of the big 5, having joined a little less than two years ago. Her salary is paid by the exchange OKCoin (about <a href="https://x.com/roryhighside/status/1788332519034953849" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">150,000 dollars</a> were allocated to her through <a href="https://brink.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Brink</a>).</p>
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     <p lang="en" dir="ltr">WBD810 – The Power of Bitcoin with <a href="https://twitter.com/glozow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">@glozow</a>. We discuss:<br>– Theory &amp; power of Core devs<br>– Protocol decentralisation<br>– Ordinals &amp; mempool “spam”<br>– Ossification vs upgrading <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">#Bitcoin</a><a href="https://t.co/Rpa0jfQayN" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://t.co/Rpa0jfQayN</a> <a href="https://t.co/q0RnQS0oys" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">pic.twitter.com/q0RnQS0oys</a></p>— What Bitcoin Did (@WhatBitcoinDid) <a href="https://twitter.com/WhatBitcoinDid/status/1788191595780542561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">May 8, 2024</a>
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<p>Gloria Zhao emphasized throughout her interview that there is <em>“nothing she can do that is not completely public.” “I recognize that I have a lot of privileges on <a href="https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Github</a>, but there is nothing we can do that isn’t fully verifiable”</em>, she reiterated.</p>
<p>Sure, but not submitting code is just as consequential as submitting malicious code. And this is where the contention lies. Many are calling for an update of the filters to stem the flow of inscriptions. Notably, Luke Dash, the second-highest contributor to Bitcoin Core.</p>
<p>Filters are the shorthand for the rules that prevent certain transactions from being relayed to a miner’s node that will add them to a block. For example, there’s the “dust limit,” which blocks transactions with an amount lower than the transaction fees.</p>
<p>The code to prevent the relay of transactions containing ordinals already exists, but the big 5 remain passive. One of the few excuses offered by Gloria Zhao is that nothing should be done that might go against the financial incentives of miners.</p>
<p>This argument hardly holds up if the network’s decentralization is at stake. What will happen to bitcoin once it’s centralized? Financial incentive should not cause ideological blindness. We need to be rational. Engineers are not about ideology.</p>
<p>We now await the other four core devs to also speak out. If the arguments are not convincing, it will be necessary to start asking questions. For example, about the revenues that an exchange like OKcoin collects on inscriptions…</p>

Bitcoin Core breaks the silence

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