Down with a nasty cold/flu —haven’t been this sick in years! But on the bright side, sick leave is the perfect time to catch up on movies my girlfriend has zero interest in. Currently watching Total Recall (1990).

Here’s a more detailed explanation of why I’ve changed my view and now support removing the OP_RETURN limit. In a private chat with @Sjors Provoost at the Bitcoin FilmFest , I asked if using Knots instead of Core poses any danger. He said "danger" is a strong word, but explained that when a new block is propagated, Knots may not recognize some transactions because its mempool rejected them due to default policy. As a result, there's latency—you have to fetch missing transactions from peers before you can mine the next block. This means a miner who filters spam is slower to react and loses edge to miners who don’t. So spam ends up on-chain anyway, and only large miners benefit—whether through out-of-band payments or simply accepting high-fee transactions with bigger OP_RETURNs. Even if most of the network runs Knots, one big miner is enough to mine such transactions. And not all OP_RETURN use is spam. Ocean, for example, used to block coinjoin transactions due to their OP_RETURN usage. I wouldn’t want to run a node that censors legitimate use cases. When I supported the OP_RETURN limit, I even asked Sparrow to add Knots public nodes (

GitHub

Feature Request: Public Bitcoin Knots nodes · Issue #1716 · sparrowwallet/sparrow

Was wondering if it is possible to add public nodes to Sparrow's list that run on Bitcoin Knots's infrastructure to give the non-node-runner users ...

@craigraw kindly responded that Knots doesn’t support BIP47, so it’d break features for users. That was another practical downside. Also, if spam is destined for the chain, I’d rather mine it and earn the higher fees. I don’t care if someone’s NFT or bridge fails —I’m paid in sats. Let the fee market and block size be the filter. I’m not here to make economic judgments for others. One concern I had was whether a higher OP_RETURN limit enables malicious code. But if attackers want to embed such arbitrary data required for the attack, they can use bare multisig to do so anyway. Limiting OP_RETURN won’t stop that. I asked @npub1c2d9...kxar whether we could disable bare multisig. He said it would require censoring pubkeys, raising the question: who decides what’s censored? A slippery slope. In that light, the cure is worse than the poison. In my thinking, if a real existential threat emerges (for example the ability to crash the nodes by embedding malicious code as arbitrary data), then and only then a limit on OP_RETURN and bare multisig can be justified and that has to be done on the protocl level, not on the policy leve. But if the side-effect of saving arbitrary data is higher transaction fees for a short time, I'm happy to collect those sats! As history shows, crazes like Inscriptions fade. We’re already back to 1–3 sats/vByte. The high-fee spam phase is behind us. And despite popular belief: mempools always clear. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on.

Back home from @Bitcoin FilmFest. Had a great night’s sleep. Now getting ready for the next #bitcoin

I’ve changed my mind—I’m now in favor of removing the OP_RETURN limit. This shift largely came from a brief but enlightening conversation with @Sjors Provoost at the @Bitcoin FilmFest . Just got back from my trip and running low on energy, but I’ll share a more detailed note on this tomorrow.

Recorded an interview with @npub1c2d9...kxar today. Stay tuned for its release!

@Totally Human Writer giving me his John Hancock in public! If you are curious what a John Hancock is, it’s one’s signature. Didn’t know this expression and fortunately, I didn’t have to learn it the hard way :)) @Bitcoin FilmFest

Good lunch! #steak #foodstr

@Bitcoin FilmFest, Day 1

I’m gonna have Ioni on my pod soon. He’s an interesting personality. I got to know him today and got a signed copy of his book, Abundance Through Scarcity. I paid for the book using Lightning on Liquid (LOL). It was the very first time I paid with LOL.

The pizza we ordered on the Bitcoin Pizza Day, because it’s the tradition. But I had my steak before the meetup 😄 I met some more carnivore people too. At this rate, we’re rebranding the Pizza Day to the Steak Day 😋

Finished reading The Genesis Book by @Aaron van Wirdum! For some reason, I only read the book when I was traveling. Don’t ask me why cause I don’t know. 🤷‍♂️ I started reading it over a year ago. Finished it today on the #Bitcoin Pizza Day 🍕 , on my way to @Bitcoin FilmFest 🧡 Great read! 📖

On our way to #Bitcoin FilmFest! @Bitcoin FilmFest

Added timestamps to my interview with @Robin Seyr. 00:00 – Intro 01:05 – A day in the life of Robin 02:35 – Robin’s calisthenics routine 10:27 – Carnivore vs. vegan vs. omnivore diets 14:43 – Momo challenges plant-based Bitcoiners to debate! 16:28 – Back to calisthenics 26:34 – How Robin found success as a Bitcoin podcaster 28:54 – Quantum computers and Bitcoin security 38:57 – The new attacks targeting top Bitcoiners 44:39 – “Bitcoin is the only thing you truly own!” 51:53 – Why everything must get cheaper in Bitcoin terms 54:36 – Is hyperbitcoinization inevitable? 01:05:35 – The future of Bitcoin custody 01:13:17 – How Bitcoin has evolved in Robin’s journey 01:22:55 – Be ready before catastrophe hits 01:30:56 – What’s our role in securing Bitcoin’s future? 01:36:58 – Robin’s favorite non-Bitcoin podcasts Watch it here: https://youtube.com/live/PUDmnFe1BE0

I caught up with all the posts that had been published by you beautiful people. It's amazing to be here, #Nostr fam! No overflow of the same topics I don’t really care about—the kind the algorithm in legacy media bombards me with, trying to convince me I’m actually interested. You are pure signal!

Steak heals 🥩 After a grand gesture of love—cooking the carby potato pirozhkis for my girl—I crashed hard. Even though I didn’t eat much of the potatoes (more meat than carbs, really), I still got hit with a full-blown sugar crash: brain fog, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and worst of all, that annoying muscle twitching (fasciculation) I hadn’t felt in ages—not since I quit coffee and cut back on tea. Strange part? I had already had steak for breakfast. Hours of restlessness and mental fog later, I finally gave in and cooked another steak. Within minutes of eating it, my energy has started coming back. I can think again. I can work again. I’ve noticed a pattern: Minced meat—even pure beef burger patties—tend to make me groggy and jittery. That same combo of brain fog, twitching, and tired-but-can’t-sleep frustration always follows. It seems I can tolerate a mix of steak and butter and eggs. 🥩 🥩 🥓 🍳 #carnivore

Cooking is my new love language! #cooking #foodstr

Watch the OP_RETURN discussion with Ziya from the link below! Now it has timestamps for easier navigation through topics: https://youtube.com/live/fFYvIsLOsnQ

The reason #Bitcoin took off was because it was meant to become money. If you wanna build some “world computer”, “file sharing system”, or “world phone”, you are doomed to approach the zero you deserve to be.