I’ve been spamming X about the OP_RETURN debate like a sheep for what must be over a week now, I should really stop.
But there is a special thing about it that I don’t think people understand yet that is so hilarious that I don’t think I can fully stop until people realize it.
I recognize most of my readers don’t know what an OP_RETURN is, barely know what UTXOs are. Look, it’s not really important, it’s a transaction type. It’s used to store arbitrary data without going into the system state of tracked coins.
What’s funny about it is that OP_RETURNs actually shrink blocks. You don’t need to understand how, but just look up a block full of OP_RETURN, it’s actually smaller than the average blocks. OP_RETURNs shrink blocks.
If you remove the size limits on OP_RETURNs, it doesn’t actually allow you to insert more “spam” data into the blockchain. The current limit right now on OP_RETURNs that are sent around on the network by the main client, Bitcoin Core, are 83 bytes. If they dropped the filters, OP_RETURNs of 100k bytes could circulate on the network.
But it doesn’t actually matter. We can already send around wizard JPEGs in Inscriptions. 400k weight units (~400kb). That’s allowed. Today. Happening, today.
If they dropped the OP_RETURN limits, the only thing that would happen is that you’d have 100kb OP_RETURNs floating around, worst case. But how does that harm the network when 400kb inscriptions are already floating around?
It doesn’t.
If anything it helps the network because one 100kb OP_RETURN takes up the same amount of space in a block as a 400kb inscription.
While paying the same amount in fees.
And shrinking the blocks.
Yet this is the issue that’s turning into a political conflict in Bitcoin, maybe a soft 3 on a scale 1-10 of the blocksize wars. This is what Bitcoin maximalists are up in arms about.
They could have chosen any issue, anything would have been more suitable, but they’ve chosen a max-retardation self-own issue that they just can never win in any discussion with a technical person ever.
The reason that it’s gotten to this point is that Filter boys have gotten sooooooooooo butthurt over seeing JPEGs on the chain that they cannot think clearly, they’re just so butthurt beyond comprehension about it that they’ll attack anything that seems like it’s trying to harm them in any way.
So stories like “OP_RETURN is coming to make you gay and retarded” just spreads like a fucking wildfire in their little communities. And there’s nothing to stop it. Any technical explanation just makes it worse.
It’s like the perfect cocktail of confusion to set them off, they’re in a mental state now where everything they hear just sounds like gaslightning. So they’ve grouped together now and are just lashing out of everything.
Going to war against Bitcoin Core.
Bitcoin Core is like in a situation where it’s trying to take care of a retarded sibling but gets slapped in the mouth with a car toy over and over again and is slowly losing their patience.
But the filter boys aren’t even close to understanding that they’ve made a mistake, they’re huddling together closer now, becoming more mentally inbred by the minute.
It’s really unfortunate. And hilarious.
In the blocksize wars, the big blockers atleast knew what it was they were fighting for.
They understood what they were saying. They said “this is a fair and simple way to scale bitcoin, what you’re doing is too complex”, but the filter boys—none of them, literally not a single one—have any idea that relaxing the OP_RETURN limits actually shrinks the blocks rather than exposes the network to spam.
And no one can convince them otherwise. Ever.