Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr has raised concerns about the Runes protocol, suggesting it exploits a fundamental flaw in the blockchain network's design.

In a post on April 26 on X (formerly Twitter), Dashjr outlined the difference between Ordinal Inscriptions and the Runes protocol in their interaction with the network. He explained that while Ordinals take advantage of vulnerabilities within the blockchain, the Runes protocol operates within the network's inherent design flaws.

Dashjr elaborated:

"Ordinals are a 9-vector attack that exploit vulnerabilities in Bitcoin Core, Runes are “only” a 5-vector attack that actually technically follow the “rules”.

Ordinals are a new type of digital assets similar to NFTs, engraved onto satoshis, the smallest units of Bitcoin. Their emergence last year marked Bitcoin's entry into NFTs, generating significant interest within the crypto community.

On the other hand, Runes are fungible tokens introduced on the day Bitcoin completed its fourth halving. Following their launch, these tokens caused significant network congestion, leading to a spike in transaction fees.

Dashjr has long been critical of both types of assets, arguing that they diverge from BTC's core principles and contribute to blockchain spam. Last year, he labeled Ordinals as a bug and led efforts to address them through bug fixes.

Filtering Runes transactions

In response to his opposition, Dashjr suggested methods for filtering Runes transactions.

He stated:

"To filter Runes spam using either Bitcoin Knots or Bitcoin Core, the only approach right now is to set datacarriersize=0 in your bitcoin.conf file (or the equivalent GUI option in Knots only)."

However, early signs indicate that miners are not following his advice. Ocean Mining, a decentralized mining pool where Dashjr serves as the CTO, recently mined its first post-halving block, with over 75% of its transactions coming from the Runes protocol.

Several miners defended their actions, citing the lucrative revenue stream from Runes transactions as their motivation for processing them.