Analyst Reveals the Pros and Cons of Ordinals-Induced High Bitcoin Fees

The broader digital currency ecosystem is experiencing its current price onslaught after reports showed that the Bitcoin network is experiencing a massive transaction congestion. This congestion resulted in skyrocketing gas fees that forced some exchanges to halt BTC transactions over the weekend.

Commenting on the event, top crypto market analyst, Willy Woo said there are notable pros and cons to the Ordinals induced high gas fees on the Bitcoin network recorded over the past few days. The analyst told his more than 1 million followers that the high gas is good for the security of the network, but not ideal for nodes and decentralization.

High fees as a consequence of ordinals has pros and cons. It's great for the security budget, but bad for nodes and decentralisation.

One day BTC block rewards will go to zero and the network will fail unless fees become huge to pay for security.

IMO decentralisation is more…

— Willy Woo (@woonomic) May 8, 2023

In justifying his position, the Bitcoin rewards will likely tend to zero someday and the only incentive investors will lean on to get security on the protocol is by paying the necessary gas fees to miners or validators. Willy Woo’s comment is directly linked to the integral cause of the network fee surge which are Bitcoin ordinals.

Noting that decentralization is key at the moment, Woo noted that he “would have preferred the impact of ordinals to have been a lot later when the security budget becomes more pressing, it would be at a time when decentralization is already anchored.”

Hope for Bitcoin Moving Forward

The inconvenience brought about by the high gas fees in the Bitcoin network is considered an attack by the growth of Ordinals which many refer to as distinguished shitcoins. While the network has no apparent coordinator, there is a likelihood that we are bound to see more of these ordinals in the near term. 

Assuming the pros highlighted by Woo are worth focusing on, this might be good, however, block reward will not be reduced to zero until after many years and as such, the inconvenience can harm the protocol more than can be imagined at this time.

The hope for Bitcoin will be the emergence of Layer-2 solutions to help Lightning Network cushion the impact of soaring transactions on the protocol. When Binance experienced the congestion, it had to integrate the Lightning Network to ease the clog, and related solutions can notably help reboot the outlook of the network.