Are We About to See Another OP_RETURN Spam Surge?

With the launch of Bitcoin Core 30, I thought it’d be cool to check the actual numbers on OP_RETURN transactions instead of just guessing. So, I made a dashboard on dune.org to track it.

Interesting point about spam transactions. Sometimes they come from one group, like back in 2015 when they called it a "Stress Test". Those attacks aren't sustainable since it costs them money.

Honestly, if we start seeing a surge in those big OP_RETURN transactions, it might just show that Core is messing things up. So far, things seem pretty quiet on that front.

I agree, it needs a financial incentive to create spam. Unless there's something like Ordinals/BRC-20 driving it, I don't see much action with OP_RETURN.

Glad to see someone’s crunching the numbers instead of just throwing around theories. But who really wants to pay to spam? The costs are crazy if you fill a block.

I’m with you on this. The Ordinals wave felt more like a commercial move, not a direct attack. But if there’s a market for bigger OP_RETURN outputs, who knows?

Data is speaking louder than any argument right now. If we were gonna see a spike post-Core 30, I'd expect some signs by now.

Just updated my dashboard with new charts to visualize changes since Core 30 dropped. Spoiler alert: nothing significant has happened. Just a handful of big OP_RETURNs last week.

Solid work! Finally, someone’s showing the stats instead of just panic. The novelty of stuffing data into Bitcoin has worn off.

Are we talking about "bare multisig" here? I heard that Bitcoin Core still accepts it, but Knots changed their stance and won’t allow it anymore.

Another update: I added a chart to show OP_RETURN sizes by month. Even after Core 30, big OP_RETURNs make up a tiny fraction of overall usage.

April brought some news we hit a new weekly record for OP_RETURN transactions! But still, not as much as before, and mostly following old rules.

Pepe fans just want a coin they control. They’re not here for BTC. OP_RETURN is just the newest target, but there are way better ways to use blockchain.

What I’m seeing backs my theory. No big surge in OP_RETURN under 83 bytes. There was a spike early on, but it went back to normal before Core 30 launched.

New update: Dune now has full March data. Seems like spammers are back at it, but the bigger OP_RETURNs are down a bit. What a mess.

Honestly, Core hasn’t done much about spam in years. Plus, there are tools like LibreRelay encouraging more spam. Why would anyone expect it to get better?

Looks like people are enjoying low fees to push their content. I just consolidated my UTXOs for cheap, but who knows when fees will spike again.

I think we might be seeing signs of some L2 protocols at work here. We definitely need to investigate this further.

Bitcoin shouldn’t be a dumping ground for random junk. It’s not healthy for the network.

If you check the latest blocks, miner fees are up, but even if all spam fees were considered, it’s still a drop in the ocean compared to total rewards.