Good, so we can establish a baseline around v30. I’m aware contiguous data isn’t new. The difference is that it wasn’t a systemic problem until the 2023 inscriptions exploit. Before that, large-scale data stuffing required convoluted workarounds and remained marginal. There wasn’t a real economic split between monetary and non-monetary use at scale.
What changed wasn’t the code alone, but the incentives. Once a market formed around inscriptions and it became culturally normalized, the behavior scaled aggressively. The data reflects that shift. At that point, it stopped being edge-case experimentation and became an industrial use of blockspace for non-monetary payloads.
Uncapping OP_RETURN without first addressing the underlying inscriptions vector only amplified the issue. It expanded one data pathway while leaving the more structurally problematic one untouched.
Are you familiar with the mechanics of the inscriptions exploit? Or how it was handled in 2023? Understanding that context clarifies much of what followed with Core v30 and why BIP100 focuses not only on OP_RETURN but also on alternative data embedding methods. What looks like an overkill is actually trying to patch a leaking bucket with many holes.
https://blockspaceweekly.substack.com/p/issue-3-three-yea…