grim on Nostr: I think ordinals and the protocol changes that enabled them were unforced errors and ...
I think ordinals and the protocol changes that enabled them were unforced errors and unfortunate. The way I see it:
We went from 1MB max block size, to 2MB max size as a strange compromise, to 4 MB max size (oopsie, code is hard), to 4MB consistent size. Many say "No big deal, just 210gb per year, tech always gets better", and this is a big blocker argument. Do we want to consume tech deflation with bells and whistles, or do we want tech deflation to burrow bitcoin into every micro device on the planet. This is creep on bitcoin's decentralization
We went from a protocol that was only used for money (a subset of speech that incentivizes enemies to cooperate) to a protocol that caters to general speech which incentivizes enemies to argue. Many point out that the world needs a decentralized free speech repository (hello nostr!), but if it really must be bitcoin too then why not an L2 or merge mined? This is creep on bitcoin's neutrality.
We've demonstrated that bitcoin is still changing at the base layer in non-trivial ways. This is creep on bitcoin's ossification.
We've potentially opened a new attack vector, where some sufficiently motivated entity could write hundreds of megs of toxic poision pills into the chain, creating bitcoin's first fud that is actually true. They don't even have to sustain the attack indefinitely. Would that be effective? Idk, but I don't want to find out.
In my view we stepped on a rake.
We went from 1MB max block size, to 2MB max size as a strange compromise, to 4 MB max size (oopsie, code is hard), to 4MB consistent size. Many say "No big deal, just 210gb per year, tech always gets better", and this is a big blocker argument. Do we want to consume tech deflation with bells and whistles, or do we want tech deflation to burrow bitcoin into every micro device on the planet. This is creep on bitcoin's decentralization
We went from a protocol that was only used for money (a subset of speech that incentivizes enemies to cooperate) to a protocol that caters to general speech which incentivizes enemies to argue. Many point out that the world needs a decentralized free speech repository (hello nostr!), but if it really must be bitcoin too then why not an L2 or merge mined? This is creep on bitcoin's neutrality.
We've demonstrated that bitcoin is still changing at the base layer in non-trivial ways. This is creep on bitcoin's ossification.
We've potentially opened a new attack vector, where some sufficiently motivated entity could write hundreds of megs of toxic poision pills into the chain, creating bitcoin's first fud that is actually true. They don't even have to sustain the attack indefinitely. Would that be effective? Idk, but I don't want to find out.
In my view we stepped on a rake.