Bitcoin Ordinals’ website has continued to be hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, causing the website to time out. Critics who like to accuse inscriptions of "spamming” the Bitcoin network see it as an ironic form of justice.
On Dec. 27, Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor flagged the DDoS attack on the website — claiming its the first time it has happened since its launch in January.
“First DDoS of http://ordinals.com! Anyone have any idea what's going on?” said Rodarmor, in an X (formerly Twitter) post.
First DDoS of https://t.co/EwfjZB2tKt! Anyone have any idea what's going on? pic.twitter.com/AWO9E7urbS
— Casey (@rodarmor) December 27, 2023
A DDoS attack is a malicious spam attempt to disrupt normal traffic on a targeted server or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of internet traffic.
The Ordinals website has been unstable throughout the day. It is currently down at the time of publication.
Several critics found it amusing that the Bitcoin Ordinals website was effectively being spammed, particularly from those who view Ordinals inscriptions as doing the same on the Bitcoin network.
Among the critics was Luke Dashjr — founder of Bitcoin mining firm OCEAN — who pointed out the “hypocrisy” of calling it a DDoS attack:
“How dare you call it a DDoS. Pretty sure everyone involved is paying their internet bills.”
“Disclaimer: I do not endorse DDoS, just pointing out the hypocrisy,” he added. Meanwhile, other Ordinals critics were more straight to the point.
“MeanHash” warned Rodarmor against calling out the potential attacker for spamming its services. “You don’t want to censor valid TCP/IP packets, do you?” asked another Bitcoiner, “Southern hands.”
In a separate thread, Dashjr went as far as comparing Ordinals-inflicted spam to “rape” in a now-deleted X post.
BREAKING: CAT-EATER @LUKEDASHJR SAYS THAT WIZARD JPEGS ARE WORSE THAN RAPE pic.twitter.com/VEXRxuWpsy
— Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) December 27, 2023
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The latest DDoS attack comes only a day after Taproot Wizards’ chief technology officer “Rijndael” launched a code script — possibly in jest — that is said to allow Ordinal-hating node operators to censor Ordinals blocks on Bitcoin on Dec. 26.
The move was seen as a shot toward Ordinals' critics to “put up or shut up."
Spam or not, Ordinals aren't damaging the Bitcoin network, argues Andrew Poelstra, Director of Research at Bitcoin infrastructure firm Blockstream, who recently spoke with Cointelegraph.
“Ordinals, while disproportionately affecting the fee market, are a tiny part of the overall Bitcoin economy and pose no threat of meaningfully displacing Bitcoin on its own network."
Poelstra acknowledged there is no technical means to eliminate Ordinals from Bitcoin but says the nonfungible token-like inscriptions are a “passing fad.”
“All we can do is wait them out," he said.
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