How could it be otherwise, the hot topics in the Bitcoin environment took place at the Bitcoin Conference 2023, an event taking place in Miami, Florida. On the main stage, a heated exchange took place around Bitcoin’s Ordinals protocol and BRC-20 tokens.
He panel was called The Great Debate And Eric Wall and Udi Wertheimer, both founders of Taproot Wizards, participated in this, an organization that promotes non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of ordinals and BRC-20 tokens. They were joined by Shinobi Monkey, freelance writer and researcher, and Spiral developer Matt Corallo. Moderator was Pete Rizzo, editor at Bitcoin Magazine.
The gathering began in earnest with Shinobi Monkey says, “In a way, Ordinals is an attack on Bitcoin.” and ordering the members of the Taproot Wizards to “behave like adults” after dancing on stage. “We broke bitcoin,” was the response from the other side.
“All those things of proving ownership of something with NFTs can be done a lot more efficiently with protocols like Counterparty,” Shinobi said, “but they create a protocol that’s intentionally a lot less efficient,” he said.
Eric Wall took the floor and accused the anonymous speaker of being “a Karen of the blockchain.”, referring to the pejorative term “Karen” used to describe authoritarian people who tell others what to do. Additionally, he pointed out that protocols like Counterparty aren’t as efficient because they “rely on Web-2 links to store files, many of which aren’t available.”
For his part, Matt Corallo asserted that “Bitcoin is not there to prevent you from throwing garbage at random on the blockchain,” it is noted that BRC-20 tokens have a “stupidly inefficient” way of doing what they claim, unlike the Ordinals protocol. Shinobi agreed, adding that “BRC-20 mimics Counterparty but is three times more efficient for no reason.”
Wertheimer, known for his “racy” tweets in favor of the new tokens generated in Bitcoin, sarcastically and jokingly thanked “all the laser eyes for storing our JPGs in their nodes.” speaking a little more seriously details two ways to approach tokenization in Bitcoin: with an efficient protocol, “like Lightning Labs’ Taproot Assets” or use “something that works today” for users who want the BRC-20 now.
Bitcoin rules, the sticking point
Wall chimed in, claiming that Segwit and Taproot allowed Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens to exist and “and all of you in this room supported those protocol upgrades in 2017 and 2021, respectively.” Shinobi Monkey responded that Segwit allowed the Lightning network to exist and that Taproot optimized Bitcoin’s use of multisig (multiple signatures) “to lay the foundation for privacy in Lightning.”
On the other hand, Wall says the information Ordinals stores in Bitcoin is present in the witness segment, “that’s the most filterable information” of what’s stored on the network. “When the blockchain is full of wizard images, it becomes even easier to run a node. If not, what are the protocol rules for?” he asked.
With the support of the other magician on stage, Wall added that “this wizard nonsense is possible because of you.”. “We’ve always said that Taproot was stupid,” Wertheimer said, adding, “As we look at the blockchain many years from now, it’s going to be more interesting to see images of magicians than transactions of people buying Bitcoin Magazine tickets.” bought (sic), it has more historical value”.
Possible solutions to the “problem”
In the search for possible solutions to the discussion Shinobi Monkey asked that “they don’t look for better ways to do things”.. “They just sit here and joke and goof around,” he accused, though he still thinks the excitement will eventually collapse, “because the market for collectibles like Ordinals isn’t like the market for gold.”
Eric Wall replied that they are working on it. “You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Me and Udi are working on a way to register the BRC-20 without depending on a UTXO each,” he explained. “And what are you doing,” he replied in the talk’s hottest moment, as Wertheimer pointed out that “the only way to solve this is to build up, not podcast to complain.”
For his part Corallo opined that creating decentralized exchanges (DEX) in Bitcoin “is dangerous because it introduces MEVIL.”, malicious version of Ethereum’s MEV (maximum extractable value). These mechanisms, which allow miners to earn more by coordinating the transactions they validate in a certain way, “increase the pressure of centralization on miners.” Ethereum validators had to comply with US laws for the software they used for the MEV, CriptoNoticias explained.
Eric Wall shared Corallo’s concern, affirming, “That’s why what we’re doing at Taproot Wizards is good.” In his vision It’s better to test Bitcoin for these issues now than that the risk is always latent. He concluded by saying that he was scared for Bitcoin because “Ethereum’s problems have been ignored for years and we don’t know anything about problems like MEV.” closed corallo.