Adam Back States ‘You Can’t Stop JPEGs on Bitcoin,’ Proposes Block Size Increase to Host Inscriptions

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Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream and legendary cryptographer, has acknowledged that inscriptions, media embedded directly on top of Bitcoin, cannot be stopped, stating that any action focused on this will only prompt users to do it in “worse ways.” Instead, Back proposed adding a new blob of data to Bitcoin blocks dedicated to inscription purposes.

Adam Back Proposes Block Size Increase to Support Inscriptions

Blockstream CEO Adam Back recognized that fighting Ordinal inscriptions, media embedded directly on the Bitcoin blockchain, is useless. In recent statements posted in X, Back stated that JPEGs (images) on Bitcoin were unstoppable and that any actions directed to stop them would only worsen the situation.

Back declared:

Complaining will only make them do it more. trying to stop them and they’ll do it in worse ways. the high fees drive adoption of layer2 and force innovation. so relax and build things.

Back has been critical of the Ordinals protocol and its purpose since its launch, calling it “inefficient” and “stupid,” prompting developers to use other solutions like IPFS to achieve the same objective.

The issuance of Ordinal inscriptions and stamps, another media embedding protocol on Bitcoin, recently took transaction fees to over $40. According to Back, a solution to this congestion issue can come in the way of allocating space directed to host this and other Bitcoin-centric data through a “segwit annex” to each block. He explained:

Inscriptors want unavoidable scarcity derived from bitcoin mining and blockspace limits, and they want to pay less not more. so a segwit annex for another 4MW space, paid by miners, with a higher discount than taproot inscriptions.

Back acknowledged this proposal would include a Bitcoin block size increase that would not be required for consensus and would also be used to save Bitcoin wallet-related data.

Many users in the community signaled that Back’s proposal resembled Ethereum EIP-4844, also known as Proto-Danksharding, which adds data blobs with a limited life to the Ethereum blockchain, which also have their own fee market.

What do you think about Adam Back’s “segwit annex” block size increase proposal for Ordinal inscriptions? Tell us in the comments section below.