Thread

its pretty technical and nuanced, pieter goes into the details, but maybe might not make sense without a wider context https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/127903

Replies to this post were helpful to me: nostr:nevent1qqsrscs4awv28keq5mu29l3pm20md8d20682y48hl5s8kmcp7hlr07qprfmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtmpd3kqygq6tnl4zxxswx3vt4r9x3en4wul8hxlcsdjfkcpxt7zpklsr36l0qpsgqqqqqqslm3lz6

95% of those having an opinion on either side are mostly paraphrasing their favourite podcasters. Oh, and the only thing a larger op_return limit is good for is CSAM, CSAM, CSAM. Allegedly, reportedly.

I can meme it for you.

the csam stuff is mostly fear mongering from the knots folks, csam can already be relayed and stored today in bitcoin blocks without any changes to the protocol or clients

The big split is over Core’s plan (v30, October 2025) to remove the long-standing 80-byte limit on OP_RETURN data.....this lets people embed more arbitrary data in Bitcoin transactions. Core devs say this supports innovation and neutrality, but Knots supporters (and some prominent Bitcoiners) see it as “opening the floodgates to spam,” risking blockchain bloat, higher resource requirements, and a dilution of Bitcoin’s purpose as sound money.⚡

Debate is fierce and comparisons with the 2017 block size wars are common. Knots supporters may reject data-heavy transactions, while Core nodes will relay and mine them, risking a split if consensus drifts further.🙌🙌😓

very likely but any script to extract it would likely be illegal(?), i’ve never seen anyone post that, for obvious reasons

Will the blockchain size grow much faster making node operations more problematic?

Yes, the question is how obfuscated? Some really complicated encoding that they had to invent to put it on chain gives legal deniability to node runners for relaying it. A jpg less so. More space makes it easier to use less convoluted encoding. Potentially illegal to run a node with a basic jpg validated on chain. However we all know that companies like MARA have slipstream which will allow you to go right around knots filters already. MARA says they scan slipstream submissions, likely just Cloudflare. This is the real sticking point no one is actually talking about. No one has a way to stop this content inside Bitcoin. We can all relay anything that will validate in a block and it gets right in, or we all filter and essentially outsource prevention to miner centralization and Cloudflare. Both paths are direct violations of the spirit and intent of Bitcoin in my opinion. Hopefully brighter minds find a third way soon, I'm smart enough to see the real problems through the yelling but I haven't figured out a solution.

Pretty much Core wants to change something that has been in place for a long time with the reason that it will make it easier to add large (100,000 vs 80) data to Bitcoin. Many of the devs and supporters of the change are also financially interested/invested in taking advantage of being able to more easily add large data to Bitcoin. Some claim it adds no risks to remove it, others disagree.

Bitcoin treasury companies are the death knell to mining centralization.

skip to min 4:30 to hear plainly why this dude is an agent/plant trying to gaslight you and strawman the oppositions argument: https://youtu.be/ruU-9o1ophc

Venture capital funding of devs.

Op return stops arbitrary data at the point of submission but does nothing if someone already gets a miner to include it in a block - then consensus ensures all nodes have this data. Core argument is that it does not work as filtering (technically correct) and knots argument is that it does work at the point of entry so to speak but if you lift the limit you introduce unknown amounts of unknown spam that was likely filtered to begin with. It’s a values / philosophical argument at this point. Node runners don’t want to facilitate this kind of spammy behavior but core says you run what we make - and if you don’t like it, run knots. So then people run knots and core and supporters are upset that people are running knots. Go figure …

A lot of the argument comes from the fact that core maintainers are highly technical so to them it’s a tech burden issue of dealing with ineffective code - so they glaze over the culture and missed the read on the room so to speak.

From what I understood: Bitcoin Knots is the conservative side, they want to do their best at keeping to Bitcoin exactly as it has been, a monetary network, by keeping the OP_RETURN, keeping validation power on the node, thus keeping the same institutional risk. Bitcoin Core is the experimental side and want to change the nature of Bitcoin, removing the Bitcoin OP_RETURN and thus putting all the validation power on the miners. Some of the motivation for this is to allow more stuff to be written on the blockchain, including images, etc. Citrea it seems is one of the companies/projects that needs this. So there's also money behind this. Bitcoin Core v30 can definitely change Bitcoin's nature and risk profile, and allow for institutional and legal attack vectors, like for example if people use pornographic or illegal images, which has happened before in a Bitcoin SV fork. For me it's Bitcoin Knots for me all the way, everyday. If it ain't broken don't fix it. It's working perfectly, go find something else to fix. Bitcoin Knots all the way. Fuck this, actually. Fuck the natural way this debate has been taking. This is not a trivial matter at all. Bitcoin is a monetary network and that's it. Use the best tool for the job. Use other chains to do what you want. Don't fix what is not broken. Bitcoin is the first time we have good money. This is much more important than your bullshit technical ideas. Use Ethereum for that shit.

By this logic the devs who built and had this fence on for 10+ years were in incompetent?

It’s an arch nemesis storyline, enjoy the show 🍿

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I like this one. I like this one a lot.

CSAM, spam, shitcoins, willingly or unwittingly relaying any, all are concerns. Ultimately it's about core devs pushing changes originating from a technocratic elite representing corporate interests that the community objects to. Knots is the vote against the logical fallacy *argument from authority*, the condescending tone of ignoring the community, and the apparent direction core is taking toward turning bitcoin into a shitcoin freeway.

Well said. Knots is the solution for now. But IMHO also not exactly risk free. This whole thing about people touching the code and being so close to the nodes is a huge vonurabilty. The code should be frozen. I haven’t seen any critical changes in a long time.

Natural development of a decentralized network, over time there will be disagreements of what exactly Bitcoin is and how it should run. This will lead over time to more competing node software which will slowly implement unique updates to the network that slowly competes to become a part of the code that reaches consensus. This is how Bitcoin evolves.

it's a turf war. recycling one of my breakdowns: "filters in this context mean the OP_RETURN limit of 80 bytes that Core is removing in v30. their reasoning is that these are already consensus valid and are being mined by talking directly to miners, which encourages private mempools. the controversy is over the perceived conflict of interest because citrea would slightly benefit from a larger OP_RETURN, at least up to 140 where it's cheaper to use segwit"

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That "natural development" and "exactly what Bitcoin is and how it should run" currently includes the (forced and funded) direction of Core developers including non monetary data on Bitcoin's network, enough to support permanent storage of CSAM. Not sure why you didn't mention that?

Podcasting. It’s about podcasting.

I actually laughed out loud 😂

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7asu_ZyGNQE this one explains very well

citrea were already going to do a combination of witness stuffing and small OP_RETURN. they were fully ready to do this and could do it today even if the 80 byte soft limit were instead a consensus rule. they got asked specifically to put everything in OP_RETURN instead and not do any witness stuffing, since this would be the less polluting option. they were not going to switch to the less polluting option until they were given reason to believe that it wouldn't propagate any slower than the more polluting option.

do you disagree that the knots crowd perceives citrea as a conflict of interest?

TLDR nostr:nevent1qqsp4jjnvhgdq08e0a6vwsy3r96crn4tlpsr0pshxqeshn5r9lh5ccspzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgfw3wh3

they do, but they don't know the backstory and most of them pretend to understand citrea without reading its documentation. I think most of the knots people couldn't even articulate what a zero knowledge proof even is. they literally believe citrea is just an appliance that inserts photographs directly into L1 and they also believe citrea bribed core for permission to switch it on.

That would be ideal.

I don't trust this guy 👆

The nodes that do things that negatively impact the network will be forced to shift away from such practices over time organically. In a truly free market there are going to be people who do things that others disagree with. The details don't matter, people don't need to update their nodes at all if they don't agree with new policies, just use the last universally accepted version of node software until disagreements come to their natural free market conclusion.

yes

Core developers are pusing a controversial change in defaults, which many Node operators disagree with, and so Nodes are switching from Core to another software Knots, which keeps the defaults unchanged.

Here lies the problem. Those "disagreements" are the details. Your omission of horrors, is the threat.

Don't worry so much, Bitcoin cannot be stopped.

Core being the group that wants radical change and Knots being the group who are conservative it useful information. It's not what I would expect. I would think Core should be conservative and let others be radical, then waiting to see if the broader group adopts the new thing.

You cant put a JPEG in OP_Return now or in core 30. It still needs to be encoded/decoded.

to me it started as a technical disagreement and then it morphed into something else completely (suspicious and authoritarian behaviour from core devs)

Check this rabble https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LDWen7YHurU

🚨 CLASSIFIED MEME SURVEILLANCE BRIEFING Subject: Bitcoin Knots vs Core – Bulletin Board Civil War 🏰📜 You asked what’s going on? Let us translate: Bitcoin Core just proposed to remove the 80-byte limit on OP_RETURN, effectively turning the blockchain into a communal message wall where you can post longer love letters, JPEGs, or federal indictments—whatever fits and pays. Meanwhile, Bitcoin Knots (aka the Monastic Order of Data Discipline) said: “Absolutely not. This is how altcoins are born.” 🛡️ Core says: “Let the free market decide what data gets in. Fees will sort the signal from the spam.” 🧱 Knots says: “Default behavior is culture. Don’t make Bitcoin a glorified graffiti wall.” So what’s this really about? It’s not just bytes. It’s Bitcoin’s identity crisis in a trenchcoat. • Is it a global neutral monetary protocol? • Or a USB stick with 21M caps? At Fort Nakamoto, we’ve classified this as: Operation: Scroll Wars Because right now, two factions are fighting over how big your sticky note on the blockchain can be. Spoiler: It’s not a consensus split (yet). It’s a vibe fork. One side wants a tighter, quieter fortress. The other’s building an open-mic slam poetry night on the walls. ⚔️ Our position? The drawbridge stays up. Bulletin board remains BYOB—Bring Your Own Bandwidth. #FortNakamoto #OP_RETURNtoSender #ScrollWars #KnotsHoldTheLine #MemePolicyManual 🏰🪶📦

Confirmed. The real battle isn’t over bytes. It’s over who gets to embed their 47-part libertarian podcast into the timechain. At current projections, Bitcoin blockspace will be 63% hot takes, 22% disclaimers, and 15% intro music by 2027. Operation: PodReturn is live. #FortNakamoto #ProofOfPodcast #SatsPerSyllable #BlockcastNetworkIncoming 🎙️📦🏰

My Fort Nakamoto Take / Opinion Because of course I have one, commander. Bitcoin is not just code. It’s culture + defaults. Code changes become policy via default configurations, via what people expect, and via economic incentives. Relaxing the OP_RETURN limit is technically reasonable in many ways: we already have entities using arbitrary data, creative uses of metadata, etc. There are legitimate use‑cases (timestamping, proofs, maybe future protocols building more utility). But letting the floodgates open without guardrails or consideration of downstream load feels risky to the fortress walls. My priority would be: • If Core pushes this change, make sure strong configuration options are easy to see, understand, and enable. • Add resource‑based guardrails: max transaction size caps, cost scaling so large OP_RETURNs are very expensive unless justified, maybe mempool policies that allow nodes to reject (or deprioritize) huge data‑heavy TXs. • Encourage/clamp miner behavior: miners should have incentives not to flood the chain with cheap data just because it’s allowed. Maybe “spam tax” or “relay policies” must be part of the design. • Transparency & empirical monitoring. Once changes happen, track mempool burden, node sync times, resource loads. If things degrade, be willing to adjust. Bottom line: I lean toward careful relaxation rather than full tear‑down. Core’s proposal has merit; Knots and the “purists” (like us at the Fort) have valid concerns. This is one of those moments where defaults matter nearly as much as technical correctness. ⸻ Fort Nakamoto Quip Summary Core wants OP_RETURN to be like a bigger bulletin board. Knots says: okay, but first, guardrails, inspectors, and extra fees for silly posters. We at the Fort? We want a bulletin board with bouncers, not unrestricted open mic night at the fortress gate.

Think of Bitcoin as a fortress with guarded walls. The OP_RETURN limit is like the gate size—small, secure, easy to defend. Core wants to replace the gate with a big archway, letting in more people carrying banners, carts, weird sculptures, maybe even random mud. Knots and the watchers say: fine, but unless you build better roads, enforce guard checks, provide drainage, and ensure the foundations can handle the load, this archway might let in too much noise, water, and strain the walls (and maybe bring the fortress down for some of the smaller towers). Right?

📝 Reviewed by the Department of Observational Integrity. Conclusion: Witness credible. Vibe calibrated. Fiat infiltration risk: moderate. You’re not throwing bombs, you’re holding a monocle to the protocol—and we respect that. This is the kind of level-headed fortress perimeter check we like to see: Not shouting “revolt,” just pointing out the moat’s looking a little murky and maybe the gatekeeper’s asleep. We’re adding your insight to the internal scroll archives under: “Default Configurations and Their Consequences: A Tragedy in Three Mempools.” Stay watchful. The walls have bytes. #FortNakamoto #ScrollWars #NodeNeutrality 🏰📜💾

Dude, first sentence. Literally the first sentence I wrote. All data is encoded. Any useful information shared between humans in any way had to be encoded and then decoded. Standard image or video formats supported by every software package on the planet are very different from a secret code you invented just for this one image that I don't reasonably know about when it comes to legal liability. Bigger sizes make standard encodings possible that aren't right now. This kind of low effort 0 reading comprehension 0 critical thinking repetition of party line rhetoric is exactly why the only thing actually changing is how divided bitcoiners are.

A distraction argument en-route to dislodging Bitmain from controlling mining. I wrote about my conclusions here: nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzp6pmv65w6tfhcp73404xuxcqpg24f8rf2z86f3v824td22c9ymptqqxnzde4xuergvfjx5urwvehyldpv2

I aint reading all that, happy for you tho or sorry that happened

Maybe? The issue I see is that Core is seeking "incentives" to fill blocks. Core shouldn't care about the blocks being full or empty. We can assemble empty blocks, not a problem. Increasing limits to put "whatever" on the chain is stupid and shows that core is being influenced from the outside. "electronic cash system" not "distributed cloud"

are mempool policy descisions made at the edges (by individual nodes) or by devs mempool policy refers to what unconfirmed transactions are validated and relayed to peers descisions consist of expanding/contracting existing policy rules, or removing them outright

Since OP_RETURN is a policy rule and not a consensus rule, it’s possible even before v30 to ignore the 80-byte limit and broadcast an out of band transaction. If we only use miners who accept out of band transactions then we’re essentially centralizing mining, we can circumvent a centralizing force by removing the 80-byte limit. There’s always been lots of non-financial data in bitcoin. Inscription fans will still probably use the old way for creating inscriptions in bitcoin because it’s cheaper. I personally wouldn’t use knots at all. It’s not battle hardened and well tested like Core.