Taproot Wizards Contributor Rijndael Offers Christmas Gift to Bitcoin Ordinals Critics

The rise and triumph of the Ordinals in 2023 have provoked the ire of Bitcoin maximalists. The surge in transaction fees, in particular, has heightened tensions between the two factions of the Bitcoin community.

In an unexpected turn of events, a contributor to Taproot Wizards, a collection featuring inscriptions by Bitcoin Ordinals, claims to have devised a method for Bitcoin enthusiasts to disapprove of Ordinals inscriptions.

Script to Reject Ordnals on Bitcoin

According to Rijndael, the script was designed to prompt nodes to reject blocks containing inscriptions. He explained that if the economic majority of nodes adopt this stance, miners will opt to build on a chain tip devoid of inscriptions or choose to sell within a smaller market.

The Taproot Wizards’ contributor even taunted critics of Ordinals by openly ridiculing them on the GitHub repository page. He stated,

“Disgusting shitcoiners have exploited a bug in Bitcoin and are spewing their sinful scams all over Bitcoin. This repo contains a script that will reject blocks containing their scams.”

Rijndael disclosed that it took him approximately 15 minutes to develop the software and acknowledged that the script could be easily bypassed by altering an Ordinal fingerprint.

Ordinals Face Accusations of Spam and Scam

Even though Ordinals introduced new use cases to Bitcoin, they have also led to heightened costs and delayed settlements for transactions on the network. Over the past year, the average transaction fee has surged by more than 25x. Simultaneously, the Bitcoin mempool grapples with massive levels of congestion.

As a result, several Bitcoin maximalists have expressed disdain for Ordinal inscriptions, denouncing them as “spam,” an “attack,” a “scam,” and essentially a misuse of resources. Earlier this month, advocate Adam Simecka declared Ordinal inscriptions to be a “scam,” creating a rift among Bitcoin enthusiasts and predicting that this trend would lead to a hard fork – a new iteration of Bitcoin – that is destined to ultimately falter.

Prominent Bitcoin proponent and Hashcash creator Adam Back voiced disapproval of Ordinals, citing their lack of “space efficiency.” Meanwhile, Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr criticized these inscriptions for their capacity to “spam the blockchain” by taking advantage of Bitcoin’s Segwit and Taproot upgrades in unintended ways.

Dashjr has proactively taken steps to filter out Ordinals transactions from his personal Bitcoin node and his mining pool’s node. This decision has stirred controversy within the community, with some accusing him of engaging in censorship.