Ocean Mining, a Bitcoin mining pool backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, recently confirmed it will censor Ordinal inscriptions, essentially Bitcoin NFTs, sparking community backlash.
The company raised $6.2M, led by Dorsey, and is co-founded by “Luke DashJr”, a Bitcoin core maintainer known for his anti-inscription stance.
DashJr stated that inscriptions exploit a vulnerability in Bitcoin Core, spamming the blockchain using a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.
These kinds of attacks typically make a service unusable by overwhelming its capacity.
To combat this, Ocean Mining is deploying the latest version of their software, known as Knots v25.1, to address this issue by effectively limiting the ability to create Bitcoin NFTs.
Most Bitcoin NFTs use a standard called BRC-20, similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20.
It’s a way to create NFTs and smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain.
The reaction in the crypto market was immediate and volatile.
BRC-20 tokens related to the Ordinals protocol, saw varied impacts.
The largest token, ORDI, initially dropped 10% but recovered to an all-time high.
Most tokens in the top ten remained bullish, some with significant gains.
The decision to censor led to debates in the Bitcoin community, especially as blockchain congestion worsened.
Around 263,000 transactions are unconfirmed, with median fees reaching $9.45.
Critics argue this move contradicts Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos.
Bitcoin educator Dan Held and Trevor Owens, General Partner at Bitcoin Frontier Fund, expressed concerns over the impact of censorship on miner behavior and the inevitability of inscriptions.
Nic Carter, a prominent crypto investor, also commented, questioning the business sense of earning less revenue in a competitive space.
Ocean Mining’s decision reflects the ongoing tension between innovation and consistency in the crypto space.
