​Bitcoin developer calls for banning NFTs on the network of the first cryptocurrency

What’s new? Luke Dashjr, one of Bitcoin Core’s developers, has called on the cryptocurrency community to ban non-fungible tokens (NFTs) issued based on the BRC-20 standard on the Bitcoin network. According to Dashjr, such NFTs overload the network with spam. As one countermeasure, he suggested amending the blockchain’s spam filter by adding Taproot transactions to it.

Bitcoin devs are trying to cancel ordinals pic.twitter.com/FOYCIKTcIS — Frank (@frankdegods) May 9, 2023

What other statements have been made? Dashjr believes that there is no need for a major network upgrade to resolve the problem. The developer added, however, that action should have been taken months ago:

“Spam filtration has been a standard part of Bitcoin Core since day one. It’s a mistake that the existing filters weren’t extended to Taproot transactions.”

NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. The creation of NFTs on the first cryptocurrency’s network was technically possible as a result of Taproot’s 2021 upgrade, exceeding its capacity, and the launch of the Ordinals protocol in early 2023. The protocol allows data/digital assets to be tied to satoshi, the smallest fractional part of BTC (0,00000001 part of the coin). Bitcoin-NFTs are also called inscriptions.

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According to Dune, more than 5,1 million NFTs have been issued since the protocol’s launch, with fees for those transactions exceeding 1070 BTC (more than $29,9 million as of May 10). Meanwhile, the share of text inscriptions made with Bitcoin Ordinals is 86,5%, with the rest being mostly images.

The popularity of the Ordinals protocol and BRC-20 NFTs has led to numerous problems with the Bitcoin network, including a sharp increase in fees and delays when processing a large number of transactions. On May 8, for example, the average fee jumped by 1156% from May 30, hitting $30,91, according to YCharts. Since August 2021, the figure has mostly ranged from $1 to $2,9, rising only once to $4,5.

Also on May 8, the Binance NFT marketplace announced support for non-fungible tokens based on Ordinals. Representatives of the exchange called this option of using blockchain promising.