The Bitcoin Mempool Drama Was All Too Predictable

So mempool.space recently added features to spot Runes and Ordinals transactions, and Bitcoin monetary maximalists totally lost it. As a Bitcoiner and observer of Bitcoin culture, this whole drama felt completely normal and predictable.

Over time, an ideological split has emerged between Bitcoin monetary maximalists “, who see Bitcoin as only money and nothing else,” and those open to buildings things on Bitcoin, whether it be innovative or crypto-esq, like Ordinals, Runes and Tokens.

With this split mindset now entrenched, the mempool.space backlash was inevitable.

To clarify some FUD going around:

The Mempool Open Source Project does not support “ord” daemon integration – https://t.co/VXxVsvUuQN only displays data contained in Bitcoin’s mempool and blockchain and from the Lightning network.

This means that if you lookup a transaction…

— mempool (@mempool) October 12, 2024

From the purist viewpoint, anything beyond the Bitcoin protocol is heresy.

So, even just the neutral action of mempool.space displaying Runes and Ordinals data for their users to see provoked outrage. Never mind if it made one of the best open-source Bitcoin explorers more useful and data rich — it touched the “forbidden” topic, and all rationality went out the window.

This reaction perfectly followed the playbook. The monetary maximalists responded to perceived apostasy with fury, as they always do on X. 

These clowns have managed to bribe one of the longest-standing and highest-quality open-source projects in the space into labeling transactions that “contain ordinals, inscriptions, and runes” as such. It is a shame, to say the least.

None of these scams are #Bitcoin. They all… https://t.co/ietxCH3T1f

— Knut Svanholm ₿ = ∞/21M = 1/🤡🌍 (@knutsvanholm) October 14, 2024

The Season 2 crowd however, put their money where their mouth is and donated to the helpful platform, doubling the number of individual sponsors and approximately tripling the project’s yearly revenue from individual contributors. They financially backed a tool they found useful rather than just complaining. Actions over words.

Bitcoin purists should also put money where their mouths are and support the Bitcoin explorers who do not spot Runes and Ordinals transactions. I have yet to see them do this instead of just screaming on X, which says a lot about them.

Both sides acted true to form.

This type of drama is inevitable when you have two factions with fundamentally different perspectives. While certain views may go too far ethically, this is ultimately human nature. We’ll keep seeing this purist versus pragmatic conflict as Bitcoin evolves and divides into diverging philosophies.

Rationality gives way to belief and identity. But understanding these dynamics helps contextualise the mempool reaction.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.