Bitcoin developers are devising a solution to tackle the congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain. With an increasing number of unconfirmed transactions leading to high fees, developers suggest a ban on Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens that are clogging up the system.
An Overview of Bitcoin’s Congestion Issues
The recent surge in Bitcoin transactions has led to a record high of around 400,000 unconfirmed transactions in the mempool waiting to be added to a block. This has also led to high fees and congestion on the network, making the system slow and challenging to use.
Along with the increase in transactions, Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens have further exacerbated the situation. These tokens enable the minting and transferring of fungible tokens on the BTC blockchain via the Ordinals protocol, leading to a continuous increase in the number of transactions, thus slowing down the network further.
Proposed Measures to Address the Congestion Issue
In response to the problem, Bitcoin developers are planning to make necessary changes to the network to handle the congestion in a better way. Developers suggest closing the loophole that enables Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens by introducing a runtime option to delete all non-standard Taproot transactions, including these tokens.
Bitcoin core developer Ali Sherief suggested that introducing this option is essential to ensure that this kind of congestion never happens again with Taproot. While some Bitcoin purists have been critical of the Ordinals project, supporters claim that it can extend Bitcoin’s use cases and attract more people to the network.
Bitcoin NFTs: The Latest Culprit
Recently launched Bitcoin NFTs have further congested the network, with Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens accounting for about half of the transactions. The market cap of all BRC-20 tokens has exceeded $580 million, and more than 5.1 million Ordinals have been inscribed on the network since the protocol launch.
However, the congestion has caused significant issues such as Binance having to pause Bitcoin withdrawals twice over the weekend. Pending transactions were processed with higher transaction fees for the exchange. If the congestion is not resolved, it will make the network slow and cumbersome to use, leading to declining trust and credibility.