Bitcoin Ordinals could be stopped if blockchain bug is patched, claims dev

A bug repair on the Bitcoin community might put a cease to new Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens as they’re inflicting community congestion by “exploiting a vulnerability,” claims a Bitcoin Core developer.

In a Dec. 6 X (Twitter) publish, developer Luke Dashjr mentioned inscriptions — utilized by Ordinals and BRC-20 creators to embed information on satoshi’s — exploit a Bitcoin Core vulnerability to “spam the blockchain.”

He defined the Bitcoin Core code has allowed customers to set limits on the dimensions of additional information in transactions since 2013, however “by obfuscating their information as program code, inscriptions bypass this restrict.”

PSA: “Inscriptions” are exploiting a vulnerability in #Bitcoin Core to spam the blockchain. Bitcoin Core has, since 2013, allowed customers to set a restrict on the dimensions of additional information in transactions they relay or mine (`-datacarriersize`). By obfuscating their information as program code,…

— Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) December 6, 2023

The bug permitting inscriptions to bypass this restrict was not too long ago mounted within the newest replace to Bitcoin Knots, a Bitcoin Core spinoff with much less examined or untested options backported from and typically maintained exterior of the core code.

One other X consumer requested if Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens “would cease being a factor” if the vulnerability was mounted to which Dashjr replied, “Right.” Current inscriptions would nonetheless stay,

“Bitcoin Core remains to be weak within the upcoming  v26 launch,” he mentioned. “I can solely hope it would lastly get mounted earlier than v27 subsequent 12 months.”

On Dec. 6, the decentralized mining protocol Ocean — the place Dashjr is chief expertise officer — mentioned on X that the Bitcoin Knots improve “fixes this long-standing vulnerability exploited by fashionable spammers.”

We’re blissful to announce testing of Bitcoin Knots v25.1 has accomplished efficiently, and is now deployed to manufacturing. Amongst different enhancements, this improve fixes this long-standing vulnerability exploited by fashionable spammers. Because of this, our blocks will now embody many extra… https://t.co/II3y0B6Pu4

— OCEAN (@ocean_mining) December 6, 2023

Because of the replace, Ocean mentioned its blocks will now embody “extra actual transactions” and implied Ordinals inscriptions are a denial-of-service assault  on the Bitcoin community,” it mentioned

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Dashjr is vehemently against Ordinal inscriptions and claimed the “harm it’s doing to Bitcoin and Bitcoin customers (together with future customers) […] is big and irreversible.”

“No person ever allowed ordinals. It’s been an assault on Bitcoin from the beginning,” he claimed in one other post.

The Ordinals protocol was launched in January 2023 by Casey Rodarmor, enabling customers to “inscribe” information and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) onto satoshis — the smallest unit denomination of Bitcoin (BTC).

The Bitcoin community has seen heightened congestion over the previous few days as a consequence of inscriptions and BRC-20 token minting.

In line with mempool.area, there are greater than 275,000 unconfirmed transactions and common medium-priority transaction prices have elevated to round $14 from roughly $1.50.

Journal: Ordinals turned Bitcoin right into a worse model of Ethereum: Can we repair it?