Controversies in the Bitcoin Core Development Community: Transaction Relay Policy and Inscription Debate

The Bitcoin Core team recently released a statement regarding the development of the trading Relay policy, sparking intense discussions within the community. The core content of this statement is the introduction of a built-in trading Relay system, which may pave the way for the previously canceled proposal to lift the OP-Return limit.

This action has attracted widespread attention because it involves a long-standing controversial topic in the Bitcoin community—inscription trading. About two years ago, inscription technology began to gain popularity, as it stored content in the OP-Return area of Bitcoin blocks through a workaround, effectively breaking the limit of Bitcoin blocks.

The Bitcoin community has thus split into two factions. The extreme conservatives believe that inscriptions are junk transactions and should be filtered out. They support the use of strict junk filters to directly refuse to package such transactions. In contrast, the relatively moderate faction believes that since inscriptions can already be on-chain, it is better to formally acknowledge their existence. In recent months, this faction has proposed changing the limit of OP-Return from 80KB to unlimited, effectively removing restrictions on inscriptions.

The newly proposed transaction relay system aims to address two main issues: preventing DoS attacks and accelerating the propagation speed of transaction blocks. It allows users to send transactions to the relay first, rather than directly to the miners. This system is voluntary and not mandatory.

However, this proposal has sparked a debate on how to define and handle "garbage transactions." Conservatives believe that inscriptions are garbage transactions and should be filtered out. Moderates argue that no normal fee-paying transactions should be censored, and filters should only target pure DoS attacks.

Despite Bitcoin Core's market share exceeding 90%, they emphasize that they are not the "official" one. They believe that Bitcoin is a user-defined network, and users have the right to choose what software and policies to use.

Supporters of this proposal believe that as long as inscriptions pay fees normally, they should not be considered garbage transactions. They argue that these transactions provide additional income for miners and help maintain network security. Opponents, on the other hand, believe this is a compromise for miners that overlooks the interests of ordinary users.

Overall, this controversy reflects the differing views within the Bitcoin community regarding the future direction of the network's development. On one hand, there are conservatives who adhere to the original design philosophy of Bitcoin, while on the other hand, there are reformists who hope to adapt to new technologies and applications. The outcome of this debate could have profound implications for the future development of Bitcoin.