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I think JPEGs on the timechain are stupid.

But the idea that they're going to hurt Bitcoin seems so weak to me. Like the US dollar can withstand people scribbling on it but Bitcoin can't?

In fact, the idea of Bitcoin as a glorious digital monument with some graffiti scribbled on it represents humanity pretty well. That's kind of us in a nutshell. Seems on-brand. Perfectionists trying to keep their little gardens tidy while trolls come in and find ways to mess with them anyway.

NFTs and memecoins already had their peak fad moments. People now know that they're non-scarce gambling toys rather than investments. It's just echoes of that peak now. The only thing that concerned me about the ordinals/runes period was the rapid UTXO bloat, not the blockspace usage, since the latter already has a consensus limit on it.

And if Bitcoin transactions can't outprice JPEGs in the long run, then it's just not that valuable. Bitcoin currently does about 1% of the gross settlement volume of Fedwire. That's peanuts. Imagine if it reaches a point where it does even like 10% of Fedwire. What would you pay to move a full bitcoin globally, permissionlessly, in 10 minutes, in a world where it's no longer a niche thing?

Tauri 7mo ago

With every argument you keep proving to me that you fundamentally misunderstand what money is, despite having written an entire book on the subject. Bitcoin is not “just a ledger,” as you’ve claimed in the past. Bitcoin is a monetary good, a decentralized payment network, and a censorship-resistant currency all in one. It’s a full-stack monetary system, not a spreadsheet.

From economics perspective, money emerges from the market as the most saleable good. Bitcoin fits this because it optimizes for scarcity, verifiability, and portability. Turning the blockchain into a dumpster for arbitrary data directly contradicts these foundational principles. It bloats the system, undermines its monetary utility, and creates financial friction for actual users.

Bitcoin *is* the most spam-prone system in the world. That’s the price of having no centralized party to manage or steer usage. And that’s exactly why its culture has always been hostile toward non-monetary use of the blockchain. Every byte of nonsense stuffed into blocks competes with real monetary transactions, increasing fees *unnecessarily*, straining bandwidth, and degrading node accessibility. That is not neutrality, it is misallocation and *abuse*.

This isn’t a technical debate, it’s an economic one. Austrian economics warns about malinvestment (capital being misallocated due to distorted incentives). JPEGs, tokens and other data on Bitcoin are a textbook examples of that. They waste block space, misalign incentives, and sabotage the very foundation that gives Bitcoin value: its usability as money and its decentralization.

If you make it expensive or difficult to run a node, you centralize validation. Most miners don’t run full nodes or create their own block templates. They outsource that to a handful of mining pools, most of whom are already flirting with KYC and OFAC. You let guys like that dictate consensus and the 21M becomes meaningless. That’s how Bitcoin dies. Not with a bang, but with friction, complexity, creeping node centralization and ruined culture.

Your current stance is pure cope. It betrays a deep ignorance of the very economic principles you claim to understand. Bitcoin is money. Everything that weakens its monetary properties weakens the entire value proposition. As a prominent influencer loved by many Bitcoiners you should do better.

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Discussion

Crizzo 7mo ago

I agree with you about some of this, but I just want to point out that the filters are what's causing bandwidth strain because nodes and other miners that aren't aware of certain transactions and have to download them to validate a recently mined block. Bandwidth usage is already limited by block size and blocks are almost always full anyway, so it's not like spam would actually increase the amount of data that needs to be shared every time a block is mined. Having everyone aware of all the transactions available to be mined would reduce latency and keep the network running smoother.

As for the rest, I agree that spam is marginally detrimental to the monetary use case, but I also think it will be priced out pretty easily at higher fee rates. My current opinion is that I would like to see fees reach a higher baseline to preemptively price out spam before the filters are dropped, but I do think they should be dropped eventually.

Tauri 7mo ago

Wrong. Suggest reading the whole post, but I pulled out the relevant part to your opinion.

nevent1qqs9glszh26df9cdhlm6w94rswczfwsnw9lx3zkv9v9sqc8z4yxaf6spupmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhj2v3swaehxw309aex2mrp0yhxumm5daeks6fwwa5kute9xgc8wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9ujnyvrhwden5te0wfjkccte9eekjctdwd68ytnrdakj7ffjxpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuvrcvd5xzapwvdhk6te9xgc8wumn8ghj7mnxwfjkccte9eshqup0y5erqamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7tjwvhxumm5daeks6fwwa5kute9xgc8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwv4u8getj0ghxxmmd9ujnyvrhwden5te0vejkuunfwgkhxtnwda6x7umgdyh8w6twp2effm

Crizzo 7mo ago

I've read that post and I know about the block reconstruction, but that doesn't address my argument about bandwidth. If everyone is running filters then nodes and miners will never see certain transactions to cache them.

Tauri 7mo ago

Good. Then they don’t need to be seen and can just be dropped.

Crizzo 7mo ago

Until a big miner mines them...

Tauri 7mo ago

Fair game. The problem is that the big miner would probably be a big pool that unilaterally decides what goes into blocks without respecting what the hash rate providers or node runers might want. And that’s a whole other can of worms. Hopefully FPPS will be getting less and less relevant in the future and the mining centralisation will be fixed to a good extent.

ESE 7mo ago

That's okay. Some wounds leave scars that we carry forever; they're part of our lives, and we must embrace them and carry on.

Guy Swann 7mo ago

There is no strain on bandwidth from missed transactions (even though that also isn’t happening anyway). The transaction is downloaded either way, either when broadcast, or when added to a block. But default compact block filtering actually keeps all transactions that are valid, even those being filtered, in expectation of them being in a block.

Essentially this argument being paraded around has no example of it in reality. It’s just some theory being tossed around that kinda sounds good, imo. Transactions are downloaded by every node no matter what the relay policy is. The only question is when.

Des Imoto マキシ 7mo ago

If nothing is happening and if it were happening it doesn’t matter, why change it? (OP_Return) The argument is, don’t change it.

ESE 7mo ago

Here comes the mop! Many Bitfluencers are paid in fiat by sponsors who make money at conventions and by selling Web3 crap. Is this related somehow?

Tauri 7mo ago

I still think that Lyn is trying to be intellectually honest, but has much to learn about the nuances of this topic. I don’t think she’s a fiat shill, yet.

ESE 7mo ago

I also like listening to her. Like all of us, she is always learning and will come to grasp the situation better at her own pace.

Mark 7mo ago

This is what cognitive dissonance looks like. They will be lumping Lyn in with the evil core devs before too long.

Guy Swann 7mo ago

I read both posts twice and I’m honestly not getting where you think she argued Bitcoin was a generic database, even though that’s the position you seem to be debating.

Her claim on the book is that *money* is a ledger system. And it is, but that also isn’t a claim that it’s a generic database. Her logic is going the other direction, not claiming what can or ought to be written on or even what that “ledger” look like, only that successful money is able to behave as a ledger system, both physical and digital forms.

I feel like half these comments aren’t responding to the specific content of the original note.

Des Imoto マキシ 7mo ago

Lyn‘s note, and I paraphrase, says that we shouldn’t fight for purity because Bitcoin can withstand JPEGs. Strange perspective. I would say, always do the right thing and stand up for it. Also, Lyn argues Bitcoin is an investment, and that she will „sell“ a portion of hers back to fiat at $150,000/Btc. I would say, Bitcoin is money, a savings and a parallel system….

Tauri 7mo ago

Come on Guy, you’re smarter than this. I know she’s your friend, but that’s not what I’m arguing about.

If money is a ledger, what is the unit in which entries on that ledger are recorded? Without a meaningful, salable monetary good, the ledger is just empty math - a glorified spreadsheet with no market value.

She wrote a 400-page book on money, defined it in a way that borders on trivial, and somehow didn’t cite Mises, Rothbard, or Hoppe even once. I mean, what? That alone tells me her grasp of monetary theory is shallow at best. She treats money like a tech abstraction, ignoring the deep economic roots that give it value.

And then there’s the claim: “Scribbling on USD doesn’t ruin USD, so it doesn’t ruin Bitcoin either.” That’s not just wrong, it’s embarrassingly naive. It confuses physical defacement with systemic degradation.

When you scribble on a dollar bill, you’re not harming the monetary system. You’re just defacing a piece of paper that can be easily replaced. The dollar’s infrastructure, banking networks, clearing systems, the Fed, remains fully intact.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is its infrastructure. The timechain is the monetary system. When you cram it with JPEGs, meme tokens, and non-monetary junk, you’re not scribbling on the surface, you’re polluting the foundation. That’s permanent economic friction. And in Bitcoin, economic friction becomes consensus risk over time.

Every non-monetary use dilutes Bitcoin’s function as money. Thanks to mining centralisation that you’re well aware of, the censorship resistance is not a set in stone guarantee anymore. If you degrade the monetary premium, the very thing that gives Bitcoin value, beyond its network effects, is mostly gone.

Take silver vs. gold: silver is more “useful” as a base metal, but gold dominates as monetary commodity because it’s better suited to store value. Same logic applies here. Bitcoin’s strength is in doing one thing better than anything else: being incorruptible, decentralized money. That’s what gives it staying power.

So yes, there’s a direct correlation between “scribbling on Bitcoin” and ruining it as money. The only question is: how much scribbling does it take to ruin the system over the long haul?

P.S. I never said that she claim Bitcoin to be a general database.

Lyn Alden 7mo ago

"If money is a ledger, what is the unit in which entries on that ledger are recorded?"

Sounds like you read someone else talk about the book rather than read the actual book yourself. But you do you.

Tauri 7mo ago

Yes, and we both know why you never answered any of the questions of the guy in question. But you do you.

P.S. this particular page you’ve shown doesn’t fill me with excitement about the book either.

Lyn Alden 7mo ago

Well let me know your feedback about the book if you ever do read it.

Otherwise, you're talking about a book you haven't read. Doesn't seem like a great use of time, but please continue.

Tauri 7mo ago

I doubt I will. As you said, not great use of time. But aside from talking about your book, I’m open to discuss the nuances of the spam on Bitcoin and its long term implications.

ChipButty 7mo ago

Oof! Criticizing her book that you haven't even read. Damn! 😂😂

Tauri 7mo ago

I’ve read enough of it to form a opinion. And I’ve got a pretty extensive library of books on economics and money that I can use for reference when reading bits and pieces of someone’s work. It’s kinda the reason why books have synopsises to see if you want to bother reading the whole thing or skip it entirely.

vinney...axkl 7mo ago

you very obviously haven't read enough of it to form an opinion.

Lyn Alden 7mo ago

Yep.

Chad Lupkes 7mo ago

I think what I find interesting is how people within this community refuse to allow different viewpoints on a subject that is by definition subjective. Instead, we just call each other out as ignorant and insult each other.