I've had some time to sleep and think on this, now, and the more I think about it, I'm just left terrified about the implications this ordinal stuff has for Bitcoin.
I see it as a very real existential threat.
I sincerely hope I am dead wrong.
I'm not an expert when it comes to this new Ordinal thing and how it is implemented, but the possibility of "polluting" the Blockchain with bad data got me seriously worried. The issue here is not so much that it is possible for someone to insert child pornography and/or top-secret defense documents in the Blockchain (which in itself is unsettling), but the fact that the Blockchain is immutable and thus cannot be altered, and this is by design. So, this offensive/sensitive data will have to be there forever, and this could provide a strong reason for TPTB to attack/ban Bitcoin "for the common good".
I assume that, if this ever becomes a problem, it should be possible to handle via a fork, with the new code base removing this feature and also somehow removing all offensive/sensitive content. Said fork will have near-full consensus, so it will become the new, sanitized Bitcoin. The Bitcoin ecosystem should be able to handle this. Another battle, another win for Bitcoin.
Still, all this mess upsets and worries me. Hopefully, Bitcoin will come out of this stronger than ever, as it has done so many times.
I've read nothing about this so I'm probably just going to sound stupid but has this been done on other chains? ETH for example?
What I'm getting at is why hasn't it happened yet...