Summary
The battle over the future of Bitcoin is intensifying on Twitter, with two camps emerging: Monetary Maximalists and Blockspace Demand Maximalists. The focus of the skirmish is whether or not inscriptions should be allowed on the Bitcoin blockchain. The author presents data that suggests inscriptions will become increasingly expensive over time due to rising BTC prices and fees. Using a calculator, they estimate the cost of inscribing various file sizes at different BTC prices, highlighting the potential high costs involved. The author believes that inscriptions will eventually be priced out, leading to the prevalence of low-time preference activities on the blockchain. They also note that the inscription ecosystem is evolving, with new ways to crowdfund and incentivize data seeding through Bitcoin and torrents. Overall, the future of inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain remains uncertain, but the author expects further changes and debates in this area.
Key Points
1. The battle for the future of Bitcoin is being fought on Twitter, with debates over what Bitcoin is and how it should be used. Two camps have emerged: Monetary Maximalists and Blockspace Demand Maximalists.
2. Inscriptions, or data added to Bitcoin transactions, have caused fees to rise to a 4-year high as high fee transactions push out lower fee transactions. This has led to concerns about the cost and feasibility of including data in Bitcoin blocks.
3. The cost of inscriptions is expected to increase as the price of Bitcoin appreciates. A chart shows that larger inscriptions, such as a 100kb photograph, could cost $1,250 to inscribe at current fees and BTCUSD price. This could price out certain types of data from being included on the blockchain.