Bitcoin Coders Fight Over Memecoin Frenzy
The coders who maintain Bitcoin’s blockchain are at odds over whether to eliminate the meme tokens that are swarming the network.
In May, a flood of speculative coins caused a record number of transactions and an 11-fold increase in processing fees on the blockchain, causing a bottleneck and forcing the Binance exchange to temporarily halt Bitcoin withdrawals.
The uproar has since subsided, but some crypto purists are concerned that future frenzied trading of memecoins like the frog-themed Pepe will clog the network and disrupt Bitcoin’s use for payments and as a store of value. They advocate deploying software to block the transactions, similar to a spam filter.
“I do think the system is being abused,” said Bitcoin developer Ali Sherief. “Bitcoin was never intended to serve as a base layer for meme tokens.”
Some developers defended the Ordinals software innovation, which allows Bitcoin’s blockchain to host large numbers of meme coins and nonfungible tokens – digital collectibles – for the first time, claiming it has broader applications.
Ordinals was created by developer Casey Rodarmor to allow users to inscribe digital content such as videos, images, and text on satoshis, Bitcoin’s smallest unit of currency. One Bitcoin contains 100 million satoshis.
(With inputs from Shikha Singh)
You need to login in order to Like
