Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: On Ordinals: Where do you stand?
by
Abiky
on 10/02/2023, 11:33:13 UTC
I know there's already a thread on Ordinals in the Development & Technical Discussion board but it's more on the technical side of things.

I guess it's interesting to hear what others have to say on what this latest development fundamentally entails or implies. There have been opposing views on this even among Bitcoin developers.

Some would say this kind of non-financial transaction isn't what Bitcoin is designed for. Surely, however, somebody could just brush this off somehow putting Satoshi's original idea seemingly subservient to what the community currently wants to make of it. Ordinals' Rodarmor himself asserted that Bitcoin has already "transcended the intentions of its creator."[1]

While a core developer dismissed this controversy as a non-issue, another core developer went as far as calling this an attack on Bitcoin itself. While somebody doesn't understand the fuss over something which is dumb and should simply be forgotten, even Adam Back, perhaps out of frustration, had to call it a "fair-game for miners to censor the crap as a form of discouragement." Of course, he had to retract it in the name of Bitcoin being censorship-resistant and permission-less. But even Rodamor himself had to also censor, at least from Ordinals' site, a lewd image inscription.[2]

The launch of the Ordinals protocol even put into question whether Bitcoin's base layer should be left alone or be kept open for anybody to tinker with and develop. Some would even call for Bitcoin's ossification to protect it from features that have possible negative repercussions.

And then there's also the issue of fungibility considering that a Satoshi assigned with a unique inscription such as an image or even a video is no longer the same with the rest.

What is your opinion on this? Are you in favor of this or not?


[1] https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/01/31/bitcoin-community-erupts-in-existential-debate-over-nft-project-ordinals/
[2] https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-ordinals-creators-look-for-fix-after-first-instance-of-shock-porn

I think it's a bad idea to use the main Bitcoin blockchain for anything other than finance applications. It will clog up the network until fees skyrocket like crazy. NFTs will make matters worse, especially when anyone can get a copy of a JPEG image online just to put it on the Blockchain. The rate of which new NFTs are added on-chain, could make Bitcoin unusable in the long run. What was the creator of Ordinals thinking? Wasn't it best to build the protocol using an off-chain scaling solution like the Lightning Network? It would've helped prevent Blockchain bloat with too many NFT transactions. Not to mention, it puts Bitcoin's security at risk.

There's a reason why BTC was meant to be used solely for finance. Not as an "all-in-one" platform for dApps, NFTs, and tokens (like it's the case with Ethereum and BNB). As a result of mass adoption from Ordinals NFTs, Bitcoin's on-chain fees increased a little. Let's see how everything will turn out to be in the long run, when more NFTs are added to the chain. Hopefully, BTC Core developers will find a solution to keep the cryptocurrency as decentralized and cost-effective to anyone as possible. Just my thoughts Grin