Key Takeaways
Bitquery published a census revealing that fake-address text outputs and OP_RETURN transactions impose very different node costs.
According to CryptoSlate, blockchain data company Bitquery published a census on Sept. 2 after scanning 965,135 Bitcoin blocks. The study revealed how different types of text embedded in Bitcoin impose varying costs on nodes. Bitquery counted 13,062 OP_RETURN taunt transactions and 96,231 fake-address text outputs across the scanned history.
The study highlights that OP_RETURN data remains in block history without bloating the unspent transaction output set, whereas fake-address outputs persist in the UTXO set and represent about 3.2 BTC that is effectively unspendable. OP_RETURN outputs do not require node retention in the UTXO database used to verify spendable coins.
Additionally, Bitquery's census followed a March 21-26, 2026, campaign that named Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr in a taunt. While Bitcoin Core 30.0 made larger OP_RETURN transactions easier to relay under its default policy, the study notes that the observational sequence does not establish that version 30.0 alone caused the increase in longer messages. The findings compare measured channels rather than tallying every embedded text instance.
Source & Fact-Check Note
This report is synthesized from coverage by CryptoSlate. Information has been fact-checked and structured for market clarity by CoinQuickly’s research desk.
Read original article at CryptoSlate ↗
