Bitcoin UTXO Bloat from Fake-Address Outputs vs OP_RETURN
Bitquery census quantifies how fake-address text outputs create persistent UTXO-set costs on Bitcoin while OP_RETURN text does not.
A Bitquery scan of 965,135 blocks identified 96,231 fake-address text outputs spread across 3,286 transactions that hold roughly 3.2 BTC still present in the UTXO set.
The same scan recorded 13,062 OP_RETURN transactions from a March 21-26 2026 campaign that named developer Luke Dashjr; those outputs added no spendable state.
Node-state distinction
Bitcoin Core 30.0 raised the default -datacarriersize limit to 100,000 bytes and permitted multiple OP_RETURN outputs under an aggregate cap for relay and mining.
OP_RETURN data remains in block history but is pruned from the UTXO database that nodes use to validate spends; fake-address outputs register as apparently spendable and therefore persist as node state.
Unresolved details
The payer, author, and motive behind the March taunt campaign are not identified in the scan.
Bitquery lacked coinbase data for 191,427 blocks and did not count witness inscriptions.