honestly I can't help but be disgusted by some of the behavior I see and know of in the ordinals & runes ecosystem influencers (ordfluencers?) are grifting and stealing from YOU as blatantly as I've ever seen it... and it'll be egregious with runes. let me explain. BTC blocktimes are ~10m long. As a result, transactions can take minutes (if not hrs - if associated fees are too low) to clear. On low volume/activity collections, this is fine. You pay for your ordinal, wait a few minutes, and find it eventually on your wallet. Problems come when you're buying a high volume collection. Mempool snipers (and I know for a fact that I'll get shit for this) track high volume collections and snipe transactions that are effectively guaranteed wins. Ex. 20 pending transactions on puppets might mean a buy hasn't yet cleared @ 0.3 while the current floor is @ 0.38. This is an immediate 0.08 arbitrage that snipers will outgas the original buyer to steal from them. This means that you can be correct on your decision to buy, send the txn on time, and have the "contract" for that ordinal LITERALLY STOLEN from you. I'm generally pro code-is-law, but the extent to which this is done and the problems this causes are absurd. As far as I know, this also sidesteps Magic Eden (or any marketplace) fees. Some might celebrate this, others might find this upsetting, but do recognize that ME is actively trying to combat this as noted in their docs. Forget royalties if you cared about them. Now what makes this particularly disgusting & egregious imo, is that the snipers ARE THE INFLUENCERS. The very people who drive hype and attention to the collections are the individuals who then arbitrage their own followers by stealing their contracts and reselling the ordinals they wanted at higher prices. I'm also aware that not all influencers participate, and that influencers who arb collection A may have never talked about collection A. I get it, I'm not blind to the reality and simply looking to create drama, but the overlap is significant. & yes, this activity is in some ways possible on other chains, but on BTC it is most easily accomplished and most ACTUALLY GATEKEPT by the influencers many genuinely look up to. Not to mention, these influencers are able to use their weight & connections w/ mining facilities and groups to help ensure that their txns are processed via OTC bribes. (I know this to be possible because I've seen ppl bribe miners OTC. This fee isn't necessarily paid over BTC, btw) This will only be exacerbated by runes. Walls of pending txns will litter the rune marketplaces, and its v likely that few if any of those buys are completed by the initial buyer, but rather the mempool sniper(s) who takes the value out from under their nose. There's a false impression that mempool sniper tools are publicly available, or that they're used by select few gigachad devs, but this is not at all accurate. There are highly gatekept and private snipers that are leagues beyond any public tooling, and exclusively left to the whims of the influencers. You are being shilled to, stolen from, then sold the assets you tried to buy... all by the same people. There's probably a real argument in here somewhere that this is actually criminal behavior. ... I have to add: I LIKE ORDINALS. I LIKE RUNES. I think both are tremendous value adds to the BTC ecosystem and to crypto on the whole. I'm personally v much hoping OP_CAT is instituted and we can build out genuinely better trading experiences where garbage like this is less prevalent. Until then, ZK is right. Collectors will prosper while most traders will get fucked. Sadly, it is the influencers and KOLs (lol) many look up to who will be doing the fucking. Trading is definitely PVP (and I support that!), but as far as trading goes, this is not what most people think they're signing up for. This is a step beyond trading and into what can actually be considered in some sense (if not explicitly so - I'm not an expert) theft. I write this not to be a debbie downer or try to FUD runes - I think they're truly exciting and have already allocated quite a lot of $ towards it. I write this because I simply am astonished at the level of grifting I've seen in this eco, and how willing people are to dismiss what is genuinely fringe criminal behavior.
& for anyone that disagrees MEV in some shape or form happens in the real world and costs investors billions this literally affects all traders significantly. It's just also hilarious that some of the participants are the ppl you look up to
@DancingEddie_ Not sure if I am in the category of ordfluencers or grifters simply adopted btc culture, RBF, CPFP, Mempool sniping, all part of the ecosystem, sorry if I sniped your ordinal. If you can't beat them join them.
@DancingEddie_ good write up eddie but shouldnt you be dancing or something
@DancingEddie_ If you buy the ticket, you take the ride. The tools are publicly available and there's nothing stopping you from taking the PVP trading to the next level. That said, ZK is right: collectors collect 🫡
@DancingEddie_ You said a lot but I didn’t see you say names. If you’re trying to bring awareness to this matter and know who’s doing it, why not respectfully say names? I don’t mean ranting a raving but if someone with a large audience is doing this why not protect their followers?