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Blockchain Bloat Threatens Decentralization
00:03:39
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| All right, let us move on. | |
| So blockchain bloat would escalate exponentially threatening decentralization. | |
| So a core strength of their argument is the quantitative risk. | |
| So Bitcoin's blockchain is already about 600 gigabytes. | |
| And workarounds like Ordinals have spiked block usage up to 20% of space in 2023 peaks. | |
| Dasher is warned that this is utterly destructive, as higher costs would price out hobbyist node operators, leading to centralization, where only well-resourced entities, corporations and governments, run full nodes. | |
| Yes. | |
| That is important. | |
| The fellow Song builds on this and highlights sustainability. | |
| The fee market alone can't self-regulate spam if data is made too easy to include, as low-value data transactions could still outbid during low-demand periods, gradually inflating the chain and making Bitcoin less accessible for everyday financial users. | |
| See, here's the thing too. | |
| Like, so Bitcoin has become the fastest-growing asset, the fastest value-increasing asset in all of human history, and it's had a very small OP return. | |
| Why do people want to mess with something that's working? | |
| So, Bitcoin Mechanic claims that an increased OP return would roll out the red carpet for scammers, normalizing what was once exceptional abuse. | |
| Jason Hughes echoes this, saying that the shift prioritizes short-term convenience over sustainability, as increased data floods blocks. | |
| Sorry, that was very badly phrased. | |
| As increased data floods blocks, raises fees for financial users and burdens nodes with gigabytes of non-essential content. | |
| Yes. | |
| Critics point to empirical evidence from Ordinal's 2023 surge, which temporarily drove fees up 10 times and slowed nodes. | |
| Expanding the OP return could normalize such events, eroding Bitcoin's resilience as a decentralized network. | |
| So critics also argue that Bitcoin's white paper envisions it as electronic cash, not a general-purpose data store, and accommodating non-financial data dilutes this focus, potentially harming its value as money. | |
| The fact that people store data is a bug, not a feature. | |
| Expanding OP return legitimizes data storage, effectively steering Bitcoin away from its financial focus. | |
| Yes, as I said, the fastest growing, quickest increase in value in any asset in human history. | |
| Let's mess with it. | |
| No. | |
| Dasher proposes stricter filters to reinforce financial primacy, arguing that ignoring demand preserves Bitcoin's niche as a secure monetary network. | |
| Yes. | |
| We need Bitcoin for when fiat fails. | |
| We don't need Bitcoin because people want to share their holiday photos. | |
| Song adds that this shift could fragment the community as seen in past debates and undermine Bitcoin's scarcity narrative by filling blocks with low utility data. | |
| Jason Hughes has warned that the update could transform Bitcoin into a useless altcoin as it encourages storing images, documents, or NFTs on chain, commoditizing block space for non-value transfer activities and eroding its scarcity as money. | |
| Yes. | |
| Bitcoin Mechanic adds that while data spam like Ordinals already harms the network, actively endorsing larger OP return makes such abuse commonplace, turning Bitcoin into a junk drawer for gross media or malware. | |
| And, you know, I got a OP return is pronounced op, like opportunity. | |
| Thank. | |
| OP return. | |
| Thank you. | |