Memecoins running on the Bitcoin blockchain could be at risk as Bitcoin blockchain coders/validators want to remove them. This follows a massive surge in the Bitcoin blockchain gas prices in May last month amid strong network activity driven by Bitcoin-based memecoins like PEPE.
Soon as the news broke out, PEPE price has come crashing down by more than 6% in the last 24 hours. As of press time, PEEP is trading at $0.0000012
This led to a major logjam on the Bitcoin blockchain at one point while forcing crypto exchange Binance to halt withdrawals. Now, Bitcoin proponents and coders are contemplating that any future frenzied trading for memecoins such as PEPE will snarl the network while disturbing Bitcoin’s use for payments or as a store of value.
The Bitcoin coders are thinking of deploying software that will work as a spam filter and block memecoin transactions. Speaking to Bloomberg, Bitcoin developer Ali Sherief:
“I do think the system is being abused. Bitcoin was never intended to serve as a base layer for meme tokens. Worthless tokens threaten the smooth and normal use of the Bitcoin network as a peer-to-peer digital currency.”
However, others have come to defend Bitcoin Ordinals, working on the BRC20 standard, which allows the BTC blockchain to host large numbers of NFTs, memecoins, and other digital collectibles.
Developer Casey Rodarmor created Ordinals allowing users to inscribe digital content such as images, videos, and texts on Satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. Later, the development of Bitcoin Request for Comment — or BRC-20, led to a massive explosion of memecoins. Currently, the Bitcoin blockchain hosts 25,000 memecoins having a total market cap of close to $500 million roughly.
Bitcoin Memecoins Create Frenzy
At one point during the last month of May, NFTs alone accounted for 65% of the total transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. During the last month, the average fee per transaction jumped as high as $30 before cooling down to $4 by the month-end.
However, this jump in the gas fees proved to be a boon for the Bitcoin miners who raked in $45 million alone from Ordinals-related activity.
Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr, also categorized Ordinals transactions as spam and believes that they should be kept off the Bitcoin blockchain. In one of the developers’ groups, Dashjr wrote: “Action should have been taken months ago. Spam filtration has been a standard part of Bitcoin Core since day 1.”
Other crypto proponents also weighed in suggesting some interesting solutions. Some have suggested the possibility of creating a version of the Bitcoin blockchain, a hardfork, that supports only Ordinals.
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