Topic: NFTs in the Bitcoin blockchain - Ordinal Theory - page 33. (Read 9515 times)

Yesterday someone decide to create an NFT[1] which has size 3915537 bytes with 0 tx fee[2]. I can't believe pool Luxor (which mine that transaction) would rather mint an NFT rather than earning more Bitcoin from tx fee. They even made tweet about it[3], where the response isn't positive.

[1] https://ordinals.com/inscription/0301e0480b374b32851a9462db29dc19fe830a7f7d7a88b81612b9d42099c0aei0
[2] https://mempool.space/tx/0301e0480b374b32851a9462db29dc19fe830a7f7d7a88b81612b9d42099c0ae
[3] https://twitter.com/LuxorTechTeam/status/1620921129287430144

1. If you have P2SH, then standardness rules apply. You cannot just "OP_PUSH OP_DROP" in your script, because it will be non-standard, so only miners could do that.
2. If you want to stick with standard transactions, then you need to express your data as public keys, use trap addresses, or use OP_RETURN. In Segwit, you can also push more data as a witness, but then you need some custom P2WSH, which is standard, and for that reason people can misuse that.

So yes, you can put any data in your transaction, but if you don't use witness, then it is more expensive, or even non-standard. Also, in practice you don't need to push everything into your transaction, you can just create a commitment, and send your message in some cheaper and more private way, as vjudeu said.

I was reading about this Ordinal thing and, I don't know if it's contrary to what you said, but Peter Todd mentioned about this possibility having always been there since forever. His point is that this isn't about Taproot at all. Taproot didn't change anything. Neither is it even about SegWit as people could already publish "as much you want" data on Bitcoin in P2SH.^[1][2]

Apologies for the ignorance and if this looks like an intrusion of a non-technical pleb. I just need some clarification.

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[1] https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/1619692068519149568
[2] https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/1620490422681473024?cxt=HHwWgMDQ3YTdkf0sAAAA

It can be solved by using OP_RETURN inside TapScript. Then, scripts are still committed to those addresses, but will never be pushed on-chain, so there will never be more bloat because of that. And then, revealing commitments can be done on a separated network.

For that reason, it should work as a "commitment to a public key", then it could be attached to any address, not only by TapScript, and then it will never be visible outside of that separate network for commitments. Also, those commitments should be connected not to output scripts, but to input scripts, specifically to R-values of signatures, then it will be indistinguishable from a regular payment.

So, all that is needed, is creating a system of commitments, where you can commit any data to a given signature, make a publicly visible transaction, and then, if you reveal your commitment, anyone can validate that it is attached to a given signature. And then, when it comes to storing those commitments, they could be stored only by users, for example in the same way as Lightning Network transactions are only stored by users. But if there is a need to reveal those commitments, then a separate chain can be created for that purpose, it will make it cheaper than pushing it on Bitcoin, and it will be also protected by Bitcoin Proof of Work at the same time, because for each transaction it is possible to attach an SPV proof if needed.

1. Omni layer and other kind of colored coins (nowadays it's called NFT) use OP_RETURN as part of their protocol.
2. Using OP_RETURN allow you to create only 1 transaction.
3. Many block explorer show decoded text from OP_RETURN output, which means higher accessibility.
3. Easier to use. You can even use Electrum to do that.

While I do understand what your debating in your post, and I have just researched about the "OP_RETURN Wars" after reading it in NotATether's post, but I have the same question as those other Bitcoiners who may or may not believe that the Bitcoin blockchain should or should not be a "utility chain". What was the use of the OP_RETURN Wars if Taproot would allow people to put arbritary data in the blockchain again freely?


Or a new attack vector. It could be used in different nefarious ways, like bringing unnecessary, extra bloat to the blockchain, and perhaps also make people believe some Satoshis' "serial numbers" are worth more than a Satoshi, causing the currency to be not fungible.

It seems to me like the author is desperately trying to convince the readers (and possibly himself too) that the "controversy" that died over a decade ago still exists! This is exactly why he has to dedicate most of the post about the "controversy" itself instead of explaining the proposal!

Is he trying to fake the data here?
Correct me if I'm wrong but a quick and dirty comparison between number of outputs with OP_RETURN (ignoring small possibility of more than on per tx) and number of transactions (look at row count at the bottom) from Jan 2018 to Jan 2019 shows that 8% of the transactions contained OP_RETURN which is nowhere close to 20%!

A short lived peak that is mostly from a completely useless altcoin spamming bitcoin blockchain is also not a good argument to revive this dead "controversy".

In other words it needs another network and rules and side-chains is the place to do all of this!

It is not controversial, it is useless

In other words people are exploiting Taproot for spamming bitcoin blockchain with garbage like back in early years where they placed it simply in the output script at any arbitrary size. Suffice it to say that that spam forced the introduction of very limiting standard rules that prevented such spams and the introduction of OP_RETURN with an 80 byte limit to manage the spam size.

In short all I see here is just an exploit of a protocol (Taproot scripts) that was not meant to be used this way so that they can inject arbitrary data that another self-defined and self-enforced protocol can detect and is not detected or enforced by the Bitcoin protocol. Like a side-chain jammed into bitcoin blockchain instead of having its own chain.

All I have to say on this matter is this won't end well for Bitcoin if this becomes a spam chain.

NFT's are a WASTE of time we are supposed to be focused on being MONEY not a "utility" chain for data.

Satoshi clearly said NO to data on chain when BitDNS was proposed.

I think this is a stupid concept and idea and should not get any attention let's get back to being sound money.. Nothing more.

I agree; that's why I still believe it's best to have any 'funny business' pushed off-chain e.g. the way RBG is doing it.
https://rgb.info/

But I will read about this one later & tell you guys what I think about it.

Quite interesting, I'll have to read up on it a bit.

From the get-go there's two things that bother me though:

(1) Blockchain bloat, since the non-transactional data payload is now only limited by blocksize, rather than OP_RETURN

(2) It would be seriously detrimental to privacy and fungibility


(1) is a discussion that has been around ever since OP_RETURN has been used to store non-transactional data on the Bitcoin blockchain and since this case is no different I'm going to skip over that one.

(2) is in my opinion a bit more serious. While it is addressed in the BIP I'm not quite sure it's quite that simple. For reference:


I disagree that this objection can be that easily dismissed. Right now, each satoshi is the same. Sure, blockchain analysis exists, but there's nothing to distinguish one satoshi from another on a technical level. Some addresses may be more suspicious to exchanges than others, but in the end a satoshi is a satoshi. Even governments and their regulatory apparatuses know that, so while they try their best to work around these limitations they still accept it. Have to accept it.

They won't once we provide tools to assign every single satoshi a unique identifier.

Though it's pointed out in the BIP that Ordinals are "opt-in", this optionality is unlikely to prevail once governments catch wind of this and start making it a requirement. First for exchanges, then for businesses and eventually for consumers. And while "any reasonable person will assume that a new owner of a particular sat cannot be understood to be the old owner" it won't prevent the average Bitcoiner from entering a world of bureaucratic pain whenever a satoshi non grata ends up in their wallet. If you think it's frustrating to be immediately suspect by taking care of your privacy by using a coin mixer, just wait until Ordinals become commonplace.

It's not using OP_RETURN, but it's using conditional branches with OP_PUSH, and also while the article claims the limits on witness data have been relaxed, there is still an overall transaction size limit of 4 (million?) weight units (about 1 vMB), and that data has to be stored elsewhere.

What it's basically saying is you can now use most of the 1MB for NFT-related stuff as well as for anything else, but expect to pay a premium on transaction fees.

Developed by Casey Rodarmor, he built Ordinals to give its users the ability to transfer individual Satoshis between each other by taking advantage of the Taproot upgrade, which can also store NFT data in Taproot script-path spend scripts.

I'm still learning about it by reading and rereading this blog, https://read.pourteaux.xyz/p/illegitimate-bitcoin-transactions

n0nce, pooyah, and others who are technical/high IQ, please ELI-5 for the newbies and the plebs like me. Haha.

Plus what's everyone's opinions/thoughts about Ordinals?