Chaintok - Nostr Hypermedia

Bitcoin is a free and open peer to peer digital cash system. It's important that all transactions are treated equally, regardless of what your personal beliefs may be. Block space is limited by design, which creates a fee market where all transactions must compete. Important transactions will always be willing to pay a higher fee to ensure inclusion. What is an important transaction? Is it sending 1000 sats to another address? Is it a CEX batch withdrawal to a 1000 addresses? Is it lightning network channel activity? Is it a monkey jpeg? Or is it another important L2 that could be critical for scaling and is settling on chain? Which of these are more important? Who is the one to decide? I can tell you who it isn't. It's not YOU! It's not ME! It's not a CORP! It's certainly not a GOVERNMENT! No one has the power to decide what is SPAM, so long as it complies with the rules of consensus. The rules of the software we all choose to run. You will never reach consensus over what constitutes spam vs valid. Everyone's opinion is different. That is what makes Bitcoin's decentralization so important. It's a dark path to go down when we can begin to choose what does and doesn't make it in chain. Any use of the block space is good use. There is no such thing as spam in a fee market. Transactions that provide the most value will be willing to pay the most fees. I have created this transaction, which we can argue is providing little value, for just a few dollars. Yet, it will be permanently recorded in Bitcoin's history. Why so cheap? Because current demand for the block space is low. High supply, low demand, increase in low value transactions. If this transaction cost hundreds of dollars, would I be willing to pay to record it? Probably not. Would someone be willing to record a jpeg? Not unless it provided hundreds of dollars of value, which we could probably agree it wouldn't. We currently have the pleasure to transact on chain with very low fees. This creates an environment where we get lots of low value spam. The good news is this is only temporary. By design, as Bitcoin adoption rises, demand for block space will also increase. High demand for block space, which is limited in supply, creates high fees per transaction. Eventually, insanely high fees. Fees higher than the average person can afford. I assure you when this time comes, or even well before, your spam will go away. This is the unfortunate truth with Bitcoin's scalability. Most people will not be able to afford to use it. It's important that Bitcoin is able to scale in other layers to maintain the ability to self custody. Handicapping L1 to fight other paying transactions is not a solution. You're free to run any node software you prefer. Just make sure you understand what it is doing. Your node filtering certain transactions does not stop my node from forwarding them. This OP-RETURN message is well beyond the limit of what your node says is valid. Yet, I relayed it through the network like any other transaction. I didn't submit this directly to a miner or use special software. I simply chose which nodes I prefer to peer with. If a node that has rules I prefer connects to my node, great, I have a new peer. If a node connects that has restrictive policy, disconnect and ban. I don't need them as a peer. This is preferential peering. I want to know about all consensus valid transactions that are in the mempool. Not just about what others say are valid minus the spam. I want to know with precision the current cost of block space. In a free and open, decentralized network, you also have the right to choose who you peer with! How awesome is that? Using restrictive node policy simply creates two versions of the mempool. The real one and the wish it was real one. Your nodes rules restrict you and only you. If you want to change that, you'll have to change consensus and get the majority of the network (including miners) to agree. Good luck with that. Bitcoin is very hard to change. Just how it should be. https://chaintok.com/tx/cd222c95d544e36841616f738e4938348173833d3149865156dd58f09ac09d63

Chaintok 3 months ago

#Bitcoin 📉 $104,474.74 BLOCK#922137

Chaintok 3 months ago

#Bitcoin 📉 $105,474.94 BLOCK#922135

Chaintok 3 months ago

#Bitcoin 📉 $106,490.57 BLOCK#922092