Jameson Lopp States That Higher Adoption Is the Way to Combat ‘Spam’ on Bitcoin

Lopp, currently embroiled in the debate to lift OP_RETURN restrictions in bitcoin, stated that the simplest way to keep so-called “spam” away from the bitcoin chain

According to Jameson Lopp, direct-to-consumer bitcoin company Casa's co-founder, the simplest way to keep so-called “spam” away from the bitcoin chain is to increase block space demand.

This way, so-called “spammers” will have to pay higher costs to use bitcoin's resources.

The debate on lifting the guardrail restrictions on OP_RETURN is still raging within the bitcoin community.

Social media users have been discussing the pros and cons of this change at length, with some members of the community, like those at Bitcoin Core, preferring to keep things the way they are.

On the other hand, several actors in the industry have stated that the simplest way to deal with non-financial content, or what some prefer to call “spam,” is to increase the costs to include these elements in bitcoin.

Along these lines, Lopp stated that the most viable solution to this issue is to increase the prices to include these elements in bitcoin.

“The most effective decentralized spam filter is imposing a cost on the resource.”

Following this line of thought, Lopp stated that the best way to increase these costs is to promote bitcoin adoption and usage, and consequently, increase transaction and blockspace costs.

“To increase the cost of block space we must increase demand for it. Convince your friends & family to take custody of their BTC.”

Lopp's opinion on the debate has earned him the “shitcoiner” label from people in the community who believe no changes should be made in this regard.

Even so, Lopp and others like Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd have highlighted that the current OP_RETURN protections cannot maintain this “spam” out of the bitcoin blockchain.

Lopp himself noted that using a different bitcoin client would not avoid this content from getting into nodes' storage.

“Rejecting unconfirmed transactions from your mempool doesn't keep them from getting into blocks and thus eventually onto your hard drive.”

Nonetheless, the proposed change has faced increased backlash on social media as actors outside the Bitcoin Core development team considered the possible consequences of such a change. Some have even declared this to be the death of bitcoin if the proposal gets finally implemented.