Bitcoin builders behind the Taproot improve didn’t account for the “social assault floor” that enabled Ordinals, BRC-20s, and different nonfinancial transactions to flood the community with spam, says a Bitcoin developer.
“What they ignore is that Taproot had vital trolling worth because the improve that Bitcoiners had been putting their hopes in,” Bitcoin Core developer Jimmy Song stated in an X video on Sunday, including:
“The improve within the social assault floor of this improve wasn’t accounted for in any respect, not to mention thought of.”
Song — who referred to Ordinals as a “fiat rip-off” final yr — claimed that Taproot has didn’t dwell as much as the hype as a result of it didn’t ship on the privateness and safety features promised.
He pointed to Schnorr signatures and Script Paths Spend options, which, collectively, had been touted as a extra environment friendly various to multisig, in some instances permitting three of 5 pals or relations to help with recovering a Bitcoin key. However, it ended up being much more difficult because it required extra rounds of signatures than conventional multisig, he stated.
“Bad consumer expertise principally made it a non-starter,” Song added. Taproot was activated by Jonas Nick, Tim Ruffing, A.J. Townes and some different Bitcoin Core devs in November 2021, constructing on the work of Gregory Maxwell, who launched the idea in January 2018.
#vlog 27
Was Taproot A Wise Decision? pic.twitter.com/sUjtf8JA2z
— Jimmy Song (송재준) (@jimmysong) September 13, 2025
Song’s feedback come amid a rising divide between Bitcoiners over which transactions needs to be validated or not validated on the community.
Adam Back, Dennis Porter and Luke Dashjr are among the many Bitcoiners who — like Song — choose Bitcoin to concentrate on fixing cash — and thus serve solely as a peer-to-peer digital money system, as Satoshi Nakamoto meant it for use.
Others, corresponding to Bitcoin Ordinals chief “Leonidas,” have embraced the Taproot improve, utilizing it to create Ordinals and Runes purposes, amongst different issues. Bitcoiners on this camp argue that Bitcoin shouldn’t censor any transaction.
Ordinals, Runes ignited the Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Knots battle
In June, greater than 30 Bitcoin Core builders agreed to take away the 80-byte restrict on the OP_RETURN perform, permitting for considerably extra photos, audio, movies and paperwork to be saved onchain.
But fears that Bitcoin Core — the main Bitcoin software program node operator — might U-turn on the replace have sparked a shift to make use of Bitcoin Knots as an alternative.
The variety of Bitcoin Knots nodes has elevated from 67 nodes in March 2024 to over 7,112 right now, representing practically 28% of the community.
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Earlier this month, Leonidas stated his Ordinals group might even contemplate forking Bitcoin Core if builders reversed the upcoming replace and tried censoring Ordinals, Runes and different non-financial transactions on the community.
Song hasn’t given up on Taproot improve but
While Taproot-enabled Bitcoin purposes haven’t met Song’s expectations to this point, he hasn’t written it off as a possible profit to Bitcoin.
“Taproot can, in fact, redeem itself, possibly Ark finally decentralizes mining, possibly BitVM creates far more Bitcoin demand. But to date, Taproot has not lived as much as the associated fee customers paid to get it.”
Ordinals, Runes have strengthened Bitcoin safety, Leonidas argues
Meanwhile, Leonidas has argued that Ordinals and Runes have contributed over $500 million in transaction charges to strengthen Bitcoin’s safety — one thing which has change into an growing concern because the community’s mining block subsidy continues to halve each 4 or so years.
However, reliance on these charges has been shaky, with the day by day payment tallying from Ordinals inscription charges starting from $3,060 to $537,400 in 2025, Dune Analytics knowledge exhibits.
The $537,400 is hardly one-twentieth of the document $9.99 million that Bitcoin miners raked in from Ordinals on Dec. 16, 2023.
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