In this rapidly surging cryptocurrency landscape, as Bitcoin (BTC) attempts to breach the $45,000 level, the recent debate over Bitcoin Ordinal Inscription has garnered everyone’s attention. As of December 6, 2023, one of Bitcoin’s core developers, Luke Dashjr, posted on X (previously Twitter) that “Inscriptions” are exploiting a vulnerability in the Bitcoin Core system.
Bitcoin ordinal inscription vulnerability exposed
Since 2013, Bitcoin Core has allowed users to limit the amount of extra data in transactions they process. This limit helps prevent spam on the blockchain. However, Inscriptions have found a way around this by hiding their data as program code, thus bypassing the limit.
The problem was addressed in Bitcoin Knots version 25.1, but the fix for Bitcoin Core is still pending and might be included in version 27 next year. The delay in fixing this issue was due to disruptions in the workflow at the end of last year. It’s essential to resolve this vulnerability to maintain the security of the Bitcoin Core system, as per Dashjr’s recent post. Dashjr also stated:
“Nobody ever allowed ordinals. It’s been an attack on Bitcoin from the start.”
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Impact on Bitcoin network and transaction costs
However, on-chain data shows that since this issue appeared, the Bitcoin network currently has more than 260,000 pending transactions, causing higher transaction fees to complete transactions. This backlog is due to the increased size of certain transactions, leading to higher memory usage, surpassing the allotted 300 MB. As a result, completing transactions on the network has become more expensive.
It is certain that until this issue is resolved, investors may face higher transaction costs. Recently, it was observed that an investor paid a significant over $3.1 million in transaction fees for transferring a massive BTC.
This issue was also experienced in May when Ordinals gained popularity; Binance had to briefly stop Bitcoin withdrawals because the network got overwhelmed with 400,000 unconfirmed transactions.
Additionally, ordinals have critics, including Dashjr, but some groups are supporting them as a progression for Bitcoin’s blockchain. Jason Fang from Sora Ventures disagrees, asserting that Bitcoin adheres to its original consensus while adopting innovations on top. He suggests that Satoshi’s open-source approach encouraged experimentation.
