Controversy in the Bitcoin Core Development Community: New Relay Policy and Inscription Trading Issues

Recently, the Bitcoin core development community has sparked heated discussions due to a new statement. This statement concerns the Bitcoin core development and transaction relay policy, with its core content being the introduction of a built-in transaction relay system. This move is seen as paving the way for the previous cancellation of the OP-Return block size limit, which has led to intense discussions within the community.

The root of the controversy can be traced back to the rise of inscription technology two years ago. Inscriptions store content in the OP-Return section of Bitcoin blocks in a special way, effectively circumventing the block size limit. This practice has sparked divisions within the Bitcoin community, creating two main factions: the ordinary right and the far-right.

The far-right strongly opposes inscriptions, considering them junk transactions that should be filtered out. They advocate for the use of strict junk filters to reject such transactions. In contrast, the ordinary right, namely the core development team, has taken a more open stance. They propose to change the limit of OP-Return from 80KB to no limit, which is essentially a default acceptance of inscriptions.

The newly proposed transaction relay system aims to address two main issues: preventing DoS attacks and accelerating the propagation speed of transaction blocks. This system is voluntary and does not require all users to participate. However, since the core development team's market share exceeds 90%, this initiative may affect existing third-party transaction relay services.

Although the core development team emphasizes that they have no power to force users to adopt any policies, this move still sparked discussions about centralization and decentralization. Supporters argue that this change is beneficial for network security and efficiency, while also providing additional income for miners, which helps maintain the long-term security of the network.

Opponents are concerned that this may lead to transaction censorship, believing that the core development team is compromising with miners. However, supporters argue that inscription users are also Bitcoin users and should not be excluded.

With the advancement of technology, allowing the Bitcoin blockchain to store a small amount of additional data without changing the underlying structure seems to be an acceptable compromise. This may increase some additional utility for Bitcoin while maintaining its primary functionality.

This controversy reflects the differing opinions within the Bitcoin community when facing new technologies and applications, and it highlights the challenges of reaching consensus in a decentralized network. Regardless of the final outcome, this discussion will have a profound impact on the future development of Bitcoin.