Bitcoin (BTC)-based Ordinals (ORDI) price briefly fell under $50 after renowned BTC core developer Luke Dashjr described Inscriptions as bugs on the blockchain network that must be fixed.
In a Dec. 6 post on social media platform X, Dashjr said inscriptions’ were exploiting a vulnerability in Bitcoin Core to spam the blockchain.
Ordinal Inscriptions are digital assets similar to NFTs inscribed on a satoshi, BTC’s lowest denomination. These assets had gained popularity earlier in the year and heralded Bitcoin’s foray into the NFT space.
However, these assets have ignited several debates within the community, with some describing it as an attack on Bitcoin due to its ability to flood the blockchain with data. In contrast, others see it as an evolution of the network.
Dashjr, one of the most prominent critics of Ordinals, stated:
“Bitcoin Core has, since 2013, allowed users to set a limit on the size of extra data in transactions they relay or mine (`-datacarriersize`). By obfuscating their data as program code, Inscriptions bypass this limit.”
CryptoSlate Research previously highlighted how the presence of Ordinals Inscriptions on the network led to longer wait times for transaction confirmations.
For context, data from mempool shows that more than 270,000 transactions were unconfirmed as of press time.
ORDI price briefly fall
Following Dashjr’s statement, Bitcoin Ordinals-based ORDI token price fell below $50 before recovering to $51.49 as of press time, according to CryptoSlate’s data.
Data from CoinGlass shows that the price retracement resulted in nearly $5 million in losses for long traders within the past 4 hours.
The token is one of the best-performing digital assets of the current crypto market bull run, gaining around 377% during the last 30 days to rally to an all-time high of $65, and its market capitalization shot to $1.08 billion during the period.
Despite its price retracement, ORDI’s price is over 2,000% higher than its Sept. 11 all-time low of $2.86.
What next for Ordinals?
Dashjr hinted that the network might soon see an end to Ordinal Inscriptions if the bug is fixed. He said the bug was fixed in Bitcoin Knots v25.1, but the Bitcoin Core remains vulnerable in the upcoming v26 release. He added:
“I can only hope it will finally get fixed before v27 next year.”
However, some community members have described the action as network censorship. Trevor Owens, a venture capital investor in BTC startups, said:
“Whether it gets added to Bitcoin Core v27 or not (hint: it won’t) the inscriptions will never stop. People will pay for them and miners will mine them. As long as the market demands it, there is nothing you can do to stop it.”
