Many people criticize Ethereum for its slow technological development, but here's a comparison for reference: 2.5 years after Bitcoin inscriptions (inscriptions/Ordinals) started causing on-chain congestion, Bitcoin developers are finally rolling out their response. Bitcoin Core plans to completely relax OP_RETURN restrictions in its next major upgrade, v30. The first release candidate for v30 is already out, and the official version is expected within the next couple of months. In this version, a single transaction will be able to include up to approximately 100 KB of data by default (subject to overall transaction size constraints) and, for the first time, allow multiple OP_RETURN outputs. The background to this change is the rise of Bitcoin inscription technology over the past 2-3 years. A large number of users have been using witness scripts (like OP_FALSE OP_IF…) to bypass the original 83-byte limit and cram large amounts of data onto the chain. This approach not only circumvented the original restrictions but also forced users to adopt worse methods (like generating large amounts of junk UTXOs) to carry data, placing a greater burden on the network. The core goal of Bitcoin Core developers with this move is to correct the incentive mechanism, encouraging users to use OP_RETURN—a safer method that doesn’t pollute UTXOs—to upload data. At the same time, this adjustment makes the public mempool more aligned with miners' actual packaging strategies, avoiding the information asymmetry caused by users privately contacting miners. However, it’s important to note that this relaxation is not a compromise to the rampant use of inscriptions but rather a "harm reduction" strategy aimed at guiding transactions toward safer and more transparent paths, rather than encouraging on-chain data abuse. That said, how many people are still actively using inscriptions nowadays?