How Bitcoin Ordinals Can Change The Future Of Mining

The sudden emergence of inscribed Bitcoin blocks has been met with criticism, but it offers a glimpse of how Bitcoin block space will evolve. This is an opinion editorial by Zack Voell, a bitcoin mining and markets researcher. A specter is haunting the Bitcoin blockchain: the specter of JPEGs. By using data storage features of the Bitcoin network that were introduced by the Segregated Witness (SegWit) upgrade in 2017 and the Taproot upgrade in 2021, Bitcoin node operators are stuffing images, GIFs and other media files into Bitcoin blocks. In fact, one of these Bitcoin memes comprised the largest single