The OP_RETURN drama just shows how MANY people don’t understand the basics of how #Bitcoin works.

Spoiler: you can’t stop arbitrary data storage on the timechain. Trying to do so might even make things worse.

Some people are saying it's possible to "filter" spam in the mempool.

Wrong. That’s unfeasible. Anyone saying that is either misinformed or acting in bad faith.

The mempool is just local policy. Who really decides what goes into a block are the miners.

Many blindly believe influencers without understanding the fundamentals:

#Bitcoin is a decentralized database designed to store data.

Financial transactions are one type of data — not the only one.

"But shouldn’t we prioritize financial transactions?"

Yes.

"But can we stop arbitrary data from going into the timechain?"

No.

"Are there good reasons to store arbitrary data on #Bitcoin?"

Absolutely.

L2s and scalability solutions depend on on-chain proofs.

That’s just data storage.

It doesn’t matter what your node accepts or not — miners are incentivized to include these transactions and profit from them.

Financial incentives are what drive the system. Period.

If you try to become a “Bitcoin™ Defender” by running software with crazy filters...

Guess what?

The transactions go straight to the miners (with extra fees)

Small miners get left behind

Mining centralizes

People will hide the data using steganography (and you won’t even notice)

Even worse: it discourages developers.

Few people work full-time on #Bitcoin already.

Imagine having to deal with drama and FUD just to propose a basic PR?

Fewer devs = slower progress = more risk = weaker #Bitcoin.

"But what about spam?"

#Bitcoin already has a built-in antispam: fees.

Don’t want to see JPEGs or zk-proofs?

Use real #Bitcoin: spend, self-custody, join the circular economy.

You know why “spam” increased so much?

Because most people stopped using #Bitcoin on-chain.

Today it’s all custodians: Strike, Wallet of Satoshi, Liquid…

Less usage = more free space = more arbitrary data on the timechain.

Want to fix it?

More real usage → more demand for block space → higher fees → less incentive to use Bitcoin as storage.

Simple. And effective.

Want to “save #Bitcoin”?

It’s not through filtering, censorship, or hysteria.

It’s through real usage, open source, economic incentives, and freedom.

#Bitcoin is neutral. And that’s a good thing.

Current work setup

The sensible policy is that relay should never be more restrictive than what is reliably getting mined in practice.

Anything more restrictive has the collateral harm of increasing centralization pressure by seriously hurting block propagation performance and by driving transactions to direct miner submission.

- gmaxwell

I’m going to make a concerted effort to move from Mac to Linux. I ran Debian way back in the day, so I’m comfortable with the tricky bits.

Much has changed since. Should I go Fedora, Ubuntu, or embrace hard mode with Arch? #asknostr

For better it worse, the sophistication of scripting doesn't seem to matter: if you give $1M to the first non-coinbase tx in a block, eventually miners will write systems to take that money :(

If you write any protocol where you let miners choose the winner, you get this problem if the effect of winning is economically significant. Of course you shouldn't create protocols that stupid, but when there's a race to collect money from gullible people, engineering very much takes a back seat.

The real defence seems to be that economically useful actions on Bitcoin can outspend stupidity over the long term. I certainly hope this continues, and I suspect (though cannot prove!) enabling more people to use Bitcoin economically will further tip the balance in its favor.

Small consistent improvements can lead to astounding outcomes over time.

I listened to the What Bitcoin Did Saylor podcast, and I really want to respond, though that may be unwise. But I want thoughtful, fearless content in my feed, so I should start making some, right?

Firstly, while analogies can provide useful guide rails for understanding, listening to people *arguing* using analogies makes you stupider. Debate the thing itself, not the words about the thing: it hurts my head to even think about doing this, so I won't.

Let's set my priors first: I assume we're talking about technically solid, well-vetted, backward compatible protocol changes: this is the minimum bar.

I don't wholesale agree with Saylor's "don't threaten anyone's investment" hard limit. This has happened multiple times in the past, from the dust limit breaking SatoshiDice, enabling Lightning threatening miner fees (real or not), and segwit breaking stealth ASICBoost. These interests can, and will, stand up for themselves and will compete against other benefits of changes.

To be explicit: I consider any protocol change which makes block space usage more efficient to be a win!

Obviously Saylor is invested in Bitcoin the asset, and can afford to do all his business onchain in any conceivable scenario. His projection of a Bitcoin world in which there are 100,000 companies and governments who use Bitcoin as the base layer is interesting:

1. This does not need "smart contracts", just signatures. By this model, Bitcoin Script was a mistake.

2. It can work if Bitcoin does not scale and is incredibly expensive to spend and hold. By this model, the consumer hardware wallet industry is a dead-end and needs to pivot to something else (nostr keys, ecash?)

3. You could do this with gold, today? Bitcoin here is simply an incremental, not fundamental, improvement. I think this is suggestive, though: that such a network would not be long-term stable, and very much subject to capture.

4. In this view, Saylor is simply a gold bug with first mover advantage, shilling his bags. That's fine, but it's important to understand people's motivations.

5. This vision does not excite me. I wouldn't have left Linux development to work on making B2B commerce more efficient. I wouldn't get up at 5:30am for spec calls, and I sure as hell wouldn't be working this cheap.

I believe we can make people's UTXOs more powerful, and thus feel a moral responsibility to do so. This gives them more control over their own money, and allows more people to share that control. I assume that more people will do good things than stupid things, because assuming the other way implies that someone should be able to stop them, and that's usually worse.

I believe the result will be a more stable, thus useful, Bitcoin network. I am aware that this will certainly benefit people with very different motivations than me (Saylor).

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the length!

open source everything ⚡️

I genuinely feel happier while on nostr than on other social media platforms.

When Worldcoin fails, it will make FTX and MtGox look like a tiny blip on the radar.

Question: What percentage or new Nostr users came here not knowing much or anything about bitcoin? Is #nostr a way of introducing more people to #bitcoin and/or learning about the problems of fiat currency; debasement, the theft of their wealth and time etc? Anyone have any thoughts on what percentage it may be? Are you someone that is new to Nostr and only now have learned about bitcoin because of #zaps #zapathon ?

#welcome

Welcome friend 🫂 zapped and followed

Welcome 🤙🤝💪🙏

Zapped followed

#plebchain

Setting up nostr…