Author: Tom Harding 2023-05-09 15:21:46
Published on: 2023-05-09T15:21:46+00:00
The Bitcoin mempool has been experiencing massive congestion due to side projects such as BRC-20, which have a high volume. This threatens the smooth and normal use of the Bitcoin network as a peer-to-peer digital currency. The suggestion was made to reject any transaction where the fee is higher than the sum of the outputs. However, Michael Folkson argued that this would prevent perfectly reasonable transfers of value and attempted Lightning channel closes during fee spikes. He suggested that a transfer can only be reasonable when off-chain value is attached to the coins. A rule like this is the embodiment of the philosophy that the Bitcoin network is for onchain-economic transactions. Parties could get around the rule by paying miners off-network, and that would be an appropriate penalty for using non-onchain-economic transactions. Ali Sherief suggested that we need to find a solution for this that fits everyone's common ground. We indirectly allowed this to happen, which previously wasn't possible before. So we also have a responsibility to do something to ensure that this kind of congestion can never happen again using Taproot.
Updated on: 2023-06-16T18:17:17.387571+00:00