I'm still ambivalent about ordinals.

They're mostly a waste of block space, but have legitimate use cases as well.

The childish behavior of putting silly JPEGs on the blockchain will mostly get priced out or otherwise exhausted.

The scammy BRC-20 token nonsense is just getting started and will come in waves. Eventually the people dumb enough to fall victim to these pump and dump scams will all have been scammed and everyone else will be as wise to it as we are to the Nigerian prince email scam.

While my normies wouldn't get how reasonable this actually is, I'd certainly be willing to try it!

Even making this a voluntary option on #Damus and #Amethyst would be a start/test.

## IN BRIEF: The Cliff's Notes Version

* Bitcoiners are arguing about the wrong enemy

* Images aren't causing the high fees; BRC-20 shitcoins are.

* This is fueled by VC money, and the BRC-20 payday breaks normal fee-market incentives.

* The problem is getting worse, not better.

* We have ways to dig deeper; let’s work together.

* There are possible “solutions” that don’t break Bitcoin.

> "The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy so that he cannot fathom our real intent.” - Sun Tzu

## The Ordinal-Scam Theory

Griftfluencers *want* you to think this is about jpegs and fees. Hint: it’s not. They're actually running a much bigger scam that exploits *everyone* for their personal gain. Cooler heads must prevail, and we must look to the correct problems. Let’s dig in.

What's fueling the fees isn't jpegs. That's just the marketing. If it were simply jpegs, the fee markets would correct the stupidity all on their own. Very few images have been minted in relation to the number of shitcoins.

![Weekly Inscription Count]()

So, the influencers that were “building?” They've been building this scam. As part of the scam, they've convinced VCs to fund the idiocy.

How does it work? From what I can tell, the VCs fund inscriptions, which mostly *aren't* jpegs; they’re BRC-20 shitcoin tokens. The VCs can turn millions virtually into billions and griftfluencers likely take a healthy cut.

## Twisted Incentives: Exposing Inscription Fee Indifference

As many Bitcoiners know, the fee market will generally charge a stupid tax, and the moronic behavior eventually ends. Shitcoin incentives are a little different. When millions turn to billions, high Mempool fees are just the cost of doing scammy business.

![Mempool]()

The problem isn't getting better; it's getting worse as the number of BRC-20s explodes. Let’s compare the last 12 months' data from Mempool (above) with the daily inscriptions by type (below). You’ll see that it started out slow, mostly images, and has come to be just a shitcoin factory in roughly corresponding waves.

![Daily inscriptions by type]()

As I said, the problem is getting worse. Now that they’ve got their model down, they’ve entered the rinse-and-repeat mode. Let’s look at the drastic increase in the number of BRC-20s pulling significant daily fees. The legend is getting so big it needs a slider.

![Fees by BRC-20 Ticker]()

Who benefits? Indeed not the few actual artists and retail buyers. VCs and griftfluencers for sure, maybe the griftfluencers more. Miners benefit from increased fees, which pay for the increased hash rate in the face of the incoming HalFinning.

## A Little Tin Foil

There seem to be second-order effects and possible shadow players. This is more questions and speculation. Who gets the fees? Who’s incentivized to perpetuate the scam?

* Miners, obviously.

* Institutional investors that are facing extremely low liquidity at the time ETFs might be approved. They can buy these increased fees as bitcoin directly from miners or indirectly from OTC desks.

* Shitcoins and other people that benefit from a fork war have incentives to keep this going.

* Governments that want to stall adoption have incentives.

* Ironically, L2 solutions and sidechains can benefit, even though they *also* get extra scrutiny and a lack of support from rightfully suspicious and jaded plebs.

Feel free to put my tinfoil on a shelf. It’s mostly just rhetorical, anyway.- But if you’re tracking with me generally, how do we uncover more truth?

## Let’s Dig Deeper