Seems like part of the utxo ownership debate lies in the taboo corner of the “with freedom comes responsibility” rabbit hole. It feels uncomfortable to ask the further question “but what about the person who doesn’t want responsibility and is happy to give up some freedoms.” When this arises in our mind we sometimes switch from the curious mode to the “ought” mode and say “well they should…” or we proudly recall a founding fathers quote about choosing death over the lack of freedom. But those responses feel more like avoiding the question. When we say choosing death we mean choosing our own death, not the death of others making a different choice. Most deep thinkers in this space hold the non-aggression principle fairly central to their ethics so we wouldn’t initiate violence towards someone giving up freedoms for the benefit of non responsibility.  We’d advise against that choice, but again we’re avoiding the question. I think there’s a very good chance that a very large percentage of people will simply choose the non responsibility route. Furthering the taboo nature of this line of thinking is that this becomes close to some kind of freely chosen slavery. But we needn’t go down that tangent when as the issue applies to the non slave who simply chooses a little less freedom. Many of us thought the Covid cellar dwellers were cowards, but so long as their choice affects only themselves, we respect their right to be cowards. I would never encourage that route, but regardless of encouragement, I think most people will chose it. Imo most will happily give up the benefits of utxo ownership over the responsibility of utxo ownership. I also think it’s avoiding the issue to imagine that some UX improvement or protocol change will make the foundational issue go away. Sure better ux can help a little but 99% of the “bad ux” problem is that you are responsible for losing your coins, and the extent to which you do not have the ability to lose your coins is the extent to which you don’t own the coins. Everyone knows there’s something dishonest about the person claiming they have a technological solution that fixes this. Clearly some have the hfsp mentality - they know most don’t want the responsibility, likely nothing will change that, and attempting to create more utxo space is pointless. Others feel it is our responsibility to create more space for them incase this dynamic changes and suddenly most people want the responsibility.  I think it’s fairly obvious right now that a very small percent of people want the responsibility. Maybe if your circle of friends is only bitcoiners you’d think otherwise, but if you have non bitcoiner friends and family you know what they’re like. And it’s not bitcoin, it’s that they’d always prefer to not be the one responsible. And to think that Bitcoin will fix this about people I think is again being dishonest. My point here isn’t so much that I have to solution to the problem. I’m more trying to point out that it’s this taboo topic that I think lies behind the utxo debate. I guess I’m also writing this to clear up my own thoughts on it. Maybe I shouldnt post it. Screw it, this is Nostr here goes


94% of mempool transactions are data storage transactions
https://m.primal.net/Kwpi.jpg


Have we had a full block where 100% of the transactions were op_return?

I think we’re on track to have one this weekend


Anyone with a large mempool and a Python RPC connection can run a similar script and get the results for your mempool
https://m.primal.net/Ktoy.jpg


Since June, bitcoin transactions with very low fees (2 sat/vb or less) have grown from 34% to 94% of the mempool, and 77% of these transactions are storing op_return data.

Analysis script below.

Image credit: mempool dot space.
https://m.primal.net/Ktov.jpg


Bitcoin fees have been declining since their peak over 6 years ago in 2018. They're currently at 12 year lows.
https://m.primal.net/KtUy.jpg


The mempool is essentially empty for monetary transactions.

2 sat/vb fee transactions are regularly clearing.

Running this script my mempool has 45k txs at 2 sat/vb or below and 80% are op_return txs.
https://m.primal.net/KtFo.png


An interesting dynamic that’s flipped in the past year is that big spent utxos are now older than small spent utxos.

Chart: 8 years spent utxo ages. Yellow is older, blue is younger.
https://m.primal.net/Kshk.jpg


https://m.primal.net/Krts.jpg
https://m.primal.net/Krtu.jpg
https://m.primal.net/Krtt.jpg


Is it fair to say that these 1-2 sat/vb txs in the mempool are pretty much all runes, brc20, and other ordinal/inscription based txs?
https://m.primal.net/Kpfw.jpg


We need to keep eating meat in order to have the mental clarity to engineer proteins that are superior to meat.

If we start eating plastic now, we’ll never get there.


100%

Good UX is bad for bitcoin


The less people you tell about your stack, the more you can stack.


While the true Tao is deeper, the spoken Tao is a helpful Tao


Total Bitcoin fees on Sept 6th were 6.552 BTC.

The last time they were this low was 12 years ago in April 2012.
https://m.primal.net/KnDY.png
https://m.primal.net/KnDW.jpg


Transaction fees are at twelve year lows.

Chart: All time total daily tx fees priced in real money (bitcoin). Log scale. 7 day avg.

Source: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/transaction-fees
https://m.primal.net/KmOb.jpg


Days held before spending of each utxo in the past year.

The purple squiggly line is wizard stuff.

Very few old coins being spent recently.

Source: utxo.live
https://m.primal.net/Kkww.png


Currently no blocks can be created after 2106 because the time stamp field is stored in 32bits which reaches its limit in 2106 and a consensus requirement is for the timestamp to be greater than previous timestamps.

https://bitblend2106.github.io/bitcoin/BitBlend2106.pdf


The thing is the the sooner we fix it the less likely it will need a hardfork.

For example if we fixed it now, a node would have to run for 80 years in order to hard fork


We should consider fixing the 2106 bug before covenants


Fiat is keeping the best athletes from getting paid correctly. NFL Quarterbacks who signed contracts 3 years ago were the highest paid at the time. Now they’re the lowest paid, even though they’re the best, only because they set their salary 3 years ago. The highest salary is now the newest salary no matter the skill.


His optimism is inspiring. The only thing we know about the future is that it will be fantastic


You mean that age increases during bull runs?


Yes for every tx in every block, I make a data point for the age of each input in the tx


The age of every bitcoin transaction.

Source: utxo.live
https://m.primal.net/KWyq.png


All utxos spent yesterday.

Source: utxo.live
https://m.primal.net/KVCP.png


Source: utxo.live


Every Bitcoin Transaction to Date
https://m.primal.net/KVAN.jpg