Debating the Proposal to Remove Spam UTXOs

There’s a new BIP called "The Cat" on the table. It’s all about getting rid of spam UTXOs that are just dust. This could help with UTXO bloat, since over 40% of the UTXO set is basically trash.

I saw it’s also mentioned in another thread somewhere, right? But honestly, in the grand scheme of things, the current UTXO size compared to the blockchain size is tiny. Like, who really cares when we're talking about 11GB vs 700GB?

Is this tied to that OP_CAT thing from a year or two ago?

Nope, not at all.

If I split my UTXO into 50k tiny ones or someone sends me a single sat, that's mine to manage. If a node can't handle a UTXO database over 1GB, that's on them, not me. This will sort itself out eventually.

Just a heads up, this BIP is already locked. Feels like it was thrown together by some random account just before it got posted. Could be risky for people, like GM pointed out in the discussion.

I’m not a fan of this idea at all. Invalidating "spam" today could lead to invalidating anything that’s deemed "illegal" tomorrow. Eventually, it might mean taking out UTXOs that don’t fit some influencer's narrative, hurting Bitcoin's censorship resistance.

But isn’t that basically what certain forks are trying to do? They’re acting like they’re fixing things, but they’re just creating more noise.

Who even takes these improvement proposals seriously? We're debating whether to invalidate UTXOs for dumb reasons now. Like, you’d risk a multi-trillion dollar asset because you don’t like some content?

My concern is how we’re risking the long-term health of the network just for short-term fixes. UTXO growth has real consequences for decentralization and node operators.

I agree, developers have been consistent about this for years. The system should manage whatever consensus allows, but we do need to be careful. Some issues can wait.

So if I buy tokens that are basically worthless now, I just hold those dust UTXOs and wait for a miracle? Doesn’t sound like a solid plan.

Wake up! The infrastructure is being built to push all sorts of illicit content through the network. Each node will have to handle it. It’s a mess waiting to happen.

Let’s be real, there are places where Bitcoin is illegal. You don’t need to focus on what's in the chain to prosecute someone. It’s way easier to accuse someone of money laundering.

Seriously? You think the only way to handle spam is to ignore it? That’s gonna lead to more problems down the line.

I figured the full node software would filter outputs based on the BIP’s criteria. Guess that’s not happening?

Optimizations need to happen locally, not at the consensus level. If you start making changes there, you risk a split chain.

This is such a tired argument. Not your keys, not your coins. If it’s not your node, then too bad. You gotta broadcast your transactions through another node.

Yeah well, a lot of companies are throwing out computers because they can’t run nodes anymore. It’s becoming harder for poorer countries to even get the hardware.

I’d love to see some proof for that. Has anyone actually looked into it?