Impact of the Bitcoin Community Discussion on Removing OP_Return Restrictions

Recently, the Bitcoin core development community proposed a suggestion to remove the size limit on OP_Return outputs. OP_Return is an output type that allows non-transactional data to be stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. Currently, Bitcoin core nodes do not relay transactions that exceed the limit, but this is not a consensus rule.

This proposal has sparked controversy. Supporters believe that it should align with market demand, while opponents are concerned it will increase spam.

The Ordinals Phenomenon and Its Impact

The Ordinals craze that emerged at the beginning of 2023 has proven that even with restrictions, people have still found ways to store images on the blockchain. By using input scripts for Taproot expenditures, Ordinals has achieved lower-cost data storage.

Data shows that the usage of Ordinals is quite significant, with over 88 million inscriptions and approximately $660 million in transaction fees generated. This field has also attracted a large amount of investment, resulting in the emergence of many related tools and services.

Attitude of the Mining Industry

As important participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem, miners generally hold a positive attitude towards Ordinals. They see it as a potential source of income, which is especially important in the highly competitive mining industry.

Some large mining companies have started to offer services to directly accept non-standard transactions, bypassing the public mempool. However, this practice may have negative effects, such as undermining Compact blocks technology and increasing mining centralization pressure.

Impact on Node Operations

From certain perspectives, the widespread use of OP_Return may actually make running a full node easier. OP_Return outputs do not enjoy witness discounts, so blocks containing a large number of OP_Return outputs will actually be much smaller than the maximum block size. At the same time, OP_Return outputs do not lead to UTXO set inflation.

Methods to Prevent Spam

The design concept of Bitcoin is to resist censorship through transaction fees. Regardless of the content of the transaction, the ability to enter the blockchain depends on whether the user is willing to pay a sufficiently high fee. This mechanism also applies to preventing spam.

Conclusion

The proposal to remove the OP_Return limit reflects the economic realities faced by the Bitcoin ecosystem. Supporters argue that this change could help maintain the competitiveness of the public transaction broadcasting system and allow the memory pool to operate more efficiently.

However, this decision may bring the risk of an increase in junk information on the blockchain in the short term. Supporters believe that the market will eventually correct this behavior, and the Bitcoin network will become stronger in the process.

Regardless of the final decision, this discussion highlights the ongoing efforts of the Bitcoin community to strike a balance between adapting to emerging demands and maintaining network security.