bitcoin-dev

Ordinal Inscription Size Limits

Ordinal Inscription Size Limits

Original Postby alicexbt

Posted on: January 28, 2023 10:58 UTC

A member of the Bitcoin-dev community had concerns about storing unlimited amounts of NFT content as witness data and questioned whether it would be wise to allow for such use cases.

They proposed finding a way to impose a size limit similar to OP_RETURN for such inscriptions. Another member replied, saying that anyone who runs an unpruned bitcoin node should be capacity-planning their disk space assuming that in the future blocks will be more full. They also mentioned that ordinal inscriptions don't change that number. However, there was a concern that banning "useless data" won't stop people from embedding their data inside "useful" data such as dummy signatures or public keys. It was argued that this sort of data is toxic to the network since even though "the market is willing to bear" the price of scarce blockspace, if people were storing NFTs and other items on the chain, then the Bitcoin fee market would become entangled with random pump&dump markets. This could undermine legitimate use cases and potentially prevent new technology like LN from gaining a strong foothold.One member initially considered ordinals and the use of witness for inscriptions useless and harmful but changed their opinion after looking at different things and reading several comments. They did not consider such things 'useless' or 'crap' and did not think it would affect the bitcoin fee market negatively, nor pose a threat to LN. They considered every bitcoin transaction a legit use case and suggested a different perspective on how such inscriptions might be used, such as embedding images of goddess Laxmi in inputs during Diwali, which combines traditional customs with modern technology. Transactions paying for block space used were not considered bad. In conclusion, while there are differing opinions on the storage of NFT content as witness data, it is important to consider the future capacity of unpruned nodes and the potential impact on the Bitcoin fee market and new technology like LN. However, it was suggested that every bitcoin transaction is a legit use case and that inscriptions could be used in innovative ways to combine traditional customs with modern technology.