The spam war tests Bitcoin fungibility. If the protocol starts filtering, fungibility weakens. If it doesn’t, spam stesses the system but preserves neutrality.
Fungibility holds at the protocol level but breaks in economic efficiency.
Filtering weakens fungibility, because the network stops being neutral, it creates preferred and disfavoured types of bitcoin.
Incorrect logic of thinking and conclusions. The stake is much higher: if no filtering to combat spam it will become increasingly bloated & costly L1 network. As result it bring risks to major historic achievement of mankind - the fist decentralized system for saving wealth. This is its main and only purpose - to support a deflationary asset, preserve value over time, which contrasts with fiat currencies that can be inflated by central banks.
I tend to listen to more technically knowlageable people than myself to determine that like Jameson Lopp. There is something to say about the ability of consensus to evolve and the uncensorable ideal of Bitcoin. I think the point made above regarding the non-fungibility of Bitcoin is essential. This is an argument I heard at the last MoneroConferenko in Prague from a university professor who told me he’s totally disinterested in Bitcoin now that it’s lost it’s fungibility, i.e some BTC is KYCed and other isn’t. I’m not saying he’s right to dismiss Bitcoin alltogether for it but the point is very relevant. Also RAM and storage capabilities are still increasing, running a node is still very much inexpensive and within most people’s reach and when the chain gets heavier over time we shouldn’t have too much trouble updating our hardware I believe.
I’ll just add, the only reason I’m running knots is Datum needs it to run and I own a Bitaxe.
Good points — I think you’re right that the deeper fungibility threat comes less from spam and more from surveillance and KYC distinctions. That’s exactly why I lean toward neutrality on-chain: if we start drawing lines at the protocol level, we risk reinforcing the same ‘two-tier bitcoin’ problem you mentioned from MoneroCon. Hardware scaling will help with chain size, and the fee market naturally pushes low-value spam out over time. But once neutrality is broken, it’s much harder to get back — and that’s when fungibility is really gone
I see your point — the stake isn’t just fungibility, it’s whether Bitcoin remains the leanest, hardest L1 for wealth preservation. My counter is that neutrality is what ensures that function long-term. Once we start filtering, we risk fragmenting bitcoin into classes of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ usage. The challenge is how to discourage spam economically (fees, UTXO costs, scaling layers) without undermining neutrality, which is itself a cornerstone of Bitcoin’s historic achievement