Monero to block NFTs in upcoming release

In response to the new Monero Ordinals Project¹, Monero devs decided² to promptly merge tevador’s proposed patch (PR #8733³) which limits the maximum size of tx_extra that’s allowed in the transaction pool to ~1 KB (1060 bytes):

This patch is really needed now that someone has released something to (ab)use the unconstrained size of the field. (jtgrassie)⁴

This move should mitigate most of the damage done by nonfungible tokens in their current form, but since it’s a non-consensus change (no HF), mining pools must agree to use the upcoming v0.18.2.1⁵ point release for it to be efficient.

The total number of NFTs minted on Monero has increased from 100 to ~1K⁶ in less than 5 days.

This is an ongoing story and the report will be updated when new information is available.

Update 23/3/27: v0.18.2.1 release was tagged⁷; ‘The Mordinal share of outputs on chain has been about 24% for the last 72 hours’, according to Rucknium⁸.

Update 23/4/4: Monero CLI/GUI v0.18.2.2 tagged⁹’¹⁰; Rucknium posted updated data on Mordinal transaction volume¹¹.