A Bitcoin Ordinals developer has threatened to money the improvement of an open-source fork of Bitcoin Core if developers effort to censor Ordinals, Runes and different non-financial transactions connected the network.
The unfastened letter connected X from Leonidas, big of The Ordinal Show, connected Saturday comes amid a warfare betwixt members of the Bitcoin assemblage arsenic to whether Bitcoin node validators should prioritize peer-to-peer fiscal transactions and censor — oregon astatine slightest disregard — ample information transactions, specified arsenic pictures, videos oregon documents, which critics assertion to beryllium spam.
Leonidas, however, called it a “dangerous precedent” and warned that immoderate tightening of argumentation rules oregon censorship of Ordinals and Runes transactions would trigger “decisive action.”
“If necessary, the DOG Army volition money the improvement and attraction of an unfastened root fork of Bitcoin Core that strips retired astir each argumentation rules, and that thousands of radical volition tally to marque it abundantly wide that Bitcoin is and indispensable ever stay censorship resistant.”His comments followed remarks from Blockstream CEO Adam Back, who is 1 of galore Bitcoiners who judge these transactions are spam and should person “no spot successful the timechain.”
Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Knots
Bitcoin Knots, an alternate to Bitcoin Core has been increasing successful popularity implicit the past year. It went from 67 nodes successful March 2024 to implicit 4,380 today, representing much than 18% of the network.
The emergence has travel up of Bitcoin Core’s v30 release, scheduled for Oct. 30, which volition region the 80-byte bounds connected the OP_RETURN function, allowing for importantly much media filed to beryllium stored onchain.
The missive from Leonidas came from fears that they whitethorn overturn the update.
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Those siding with Back see Ocean Mining creator Luke Dashjr and Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter.
Bitcoin fees from Ordinals, Runes could support miners around
Leonidas argued that the Ordinals and Runes ecosystems person contributed implicit $500 cardinal successful transaction fees to strengthen Bitcoin’s security — thing which has go an expanding interest arsenic the Bitcoin mining artifact subsidy continues to halve each 4 oregon truthful years.
He added that he’s spoken with Bitcoin miners representing implicit 50% of Bitcoin’s hash rate and said that they would proceed to judge immoderate transaction provided the fees are competitive.
Ordinals enactment has been unpredictable
Relying connected fees from Ordinals transactions has proven to beryllium tough, however, with enactment showing wide seasonality.
On Aug. 31, Bitcoin miners made conscionable $3,060 from Ordinals — a tiny fraction of the regular grounds $9.99 cardinal it raked successful connected Dec. 16, 2023, Dune Analytics data shows.
Even successful 2025, the strongest regular full hasn’t adjacent topped $1 million, suggesting Ordinals aren’t taking up arsenic overmuch blockspace arsenic they utilized to.
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