In the last 90 days, inscriptions and transactions with Op_return maintained their prominence in Bitcoin. As noted on September 30, the Mempool developer known in X as Orangesurf, these operations represent “40% of total transactions.”
In that same period, Orangesurf said that these types of transactions contributed the «10% of the commissions paid on the network and that its weight equals 28% of the total processed in Bitcoin ».
Op_return in Bitcoin is an option (operations code) that allows to include arbitrary data in a transaction, such as messages, texts or images.
As cryptootics notified, the current representativeness of OP_RETURN operations in Bitcoin is maintained since at least April of this year, when Almost half of all transactions were non -monetary.
Other reports, June and July, reflected that this trend continued.
Technical Debate in Bitcoin on inscriptions
The weight in transactions that include data through op_return or inscriptions, which is reflected by the data described, has reactivated technical discussions within the Bitcoiner community.
Several developers consider that these uses increase the pressure on block space and can affect both costs and network performance.
In this context, on September 22, developer Mike Schmidt, who is also Brink’s executive director, a non -profit organization that finances Bitcoin Core, reported in X:
I opened a Pull Request (PR) in Bitcoin Core to eliminate the disapproval of Datacarrier and Datacarriersize options. I realize that this is a sensitive issue for Bitcoin Core users …
Mike Schmidt, Bitcoiner developer.
The expression “opening a PR” means proposing changes to the source code for other collaborators to review and eventually integrate them.
In this case, Schmidt presented his PR in the Bitcoin Core repository to reverse the discontinuation (or marked as obsolete) of the options «Datacarrier and Datacarriersize».
Those options allow nodes decide if they accept transactions with embedded data and establish the maximum size of that data.
The developer explains in the repository That its objective is to eliminate that state of “obsolescence” in version 30 of CORE, to avoid confusion among users, after that client increased the op_return limit to 100,000 bytes, thus increasing the amount of non -monetary information which can be included in each transaction.
For Schmidt, clarify and maintain these options would help reduce confusion around the management of non -monetary transactions, precisely at a time when its volume is still high (as Orangesurf detailed).
After the announcement of the PR de Schmidt, some developers expressed their distrust About the true scope of the proposal. For example, Léo He said:
This seems damage control. After that, Core developers can say: ‘Look, we have heard them and can still configure Datacarrier’. Meanwhile, the default value remains scandalously high and -datacarrier is still broken.
Léo, Bitcoiner developer.
With this phrase, Léo suggests that the opening of the PR would be Only a maneuver to give the impression that criticisms are treatedwithout actually modifying the parameters questioned.
In the same conversation, Luke Dashjr, main maintainer of the Knots client, joined the debate asking: “What’s the name of when someone tries to make you believe that something changed, but in reality it did not?”
Your comment reinforces the suspicion that Schmidt’s proposal It would not represent a substantial change.
For his part, Adam Back, Blockstream co -founder and who already anticipated that he will use Bitcoin Core version 30, defended Schmidt’s measure:
Datacarrier is not broken, you have read some misinformation. There are different opinions of sensible people with technical understanding about which parameter is better. There are also side effects to consider. Allowing users to establish their preference is a reasonable approach.
Adam Back, Co -founder Blockstream.
Back sought thus clarifying the discussion and highlighting that there is diversity of technical criteria on how to manage these parameters.
LEO replied Back:
You remind me of Core developers telling me that Datacarrier was not broken with the evasion of registrations because they updated (vandalized) the documentation.
Léo, Bitcoiner developer.
With this, Léo insisted that, beyond the explanations received, the modifications introduced in Bitcoin Core would have changed in practice the behavior of the system regarding the use of oreurn and inscriptions.
This exchange reveals that, while inscriptions and data in Op_return continue to occupy a considerable fraction of block space, there is still debate about debate How the parameters that control these uses should be managed.
In this context, the figures shared by Orangesurf reflects that inscriptions and op_return are not a marginal phenomenon.
Their persistence, together with the discussions about DatacarrierThey show that the design of Bitcoin Core is still subject to technical reviews and disagreements on how to balance flexibility and efficiency in the use of the block.