F2Pool is actively attacking the network RIGHT NOW. All it takes is one attacker to send them a single instance of CSAM, and Bitcoin users will have to knowingly and intentionally receive, store, and distribute it until the end of time. This will permanently impact Bitcoin adoption regardless of whether governments turn a blind eye or prosecute. If miners are going to switch pools when they do bad things, NOW IS THE TIME. I don't care if you switch to Foundry or even Antpool. Obviously I would prefer you make your own blocks and use OCEAN, but this is too critical and time-sensitive to be picky. We can work on mining decentralization and spam issues over a longer period of time, but CSAM is an insta-kill we MUST avoid.

Replies (47)

People are always going to do stuff we don't like. The timechain is something shared by humans, like the oceans. People pee on it and we still bathe in them.
Done. I'm not sure why anyone would mine anywhere but ocean right now. Less fees and actual configurability. Thanks for your work @Luke Dashjr
ESE's avatar
ESE 9 months ago
Reflecting on this situation, the node runners and anti-spam movement are true Bitcoiners, understanding Bitcoin’s monetary nature and aiming to preserve it as a means of exchange, not just data hosting. They are cautious, trying to avoid a fork and maintain chain integrity. Initially, Bitcoin Core accused people like @Bitcoin Mechanic and the Knots community of causing a fork, but this reveals their own intentions. It seems Core might trigger a hard fork, especially since they’re developing “Libre Relay,” possibly leading to a “LibraCoin,” similar to Facebook’s project. The engineers’ goal of centralization under “coordination” contrasts with node runners who preserve Bitcoin’s original purpose. If the fork occurs, we’ll sell the LibraCoins into hype and stack sats.
The exact thing happened to BSV in 2019 when they blew open op_return. It’s not a prediction, it’s a history lesson.
I have serious concerns with this framing. The legal argument doesn’t hold up. Node operators aren’t liable for encrypted data they didn’t create and can’t access. ISPs, CDNs, and Tor nodes have legal precedent here. What makes Bitcoin nodes different? CSAM has likely already been encoded in the blockchain for years through various methods. If this is truly an insta kill for adoption, why hasn’t it already happened? If Bitcoin can be killed by one attacker sending one instance of illegal content, then it was never antifragile. This argument concedes Bitcoin can’t survive adversarial use, which undermines the entire value proposition. And switch pools NOW but obviously I prefer OCEAN? That undercuts this being about Bitcoin’s survival rather than pool market share. If I’m missing something in the legal or technical analysis, I genuinely want to understand it View quoted note →
Braiins no longer runs a pool, they just proxy to Antpool. But again... anything but F2Pool is an improvement for now. Lots of people use DATUM on a Raspberry Pi. Though Pi isn't very good at running a node since the last spam wave.
C's avatar
C 9 months ago
I've been running a node for years and I've never seen an image of any kind on the chain. Closest I've ever seen to the "spam" that chicken little keeps yelling about was the Bitcoin Genesis block, which copied a news article about a bank bailout in the UK happening at the time.
Apparently ignorance is stil bliss. I have to accept society has been so dumbed down by the system that even Bitcoiners to be saved from themselves. @Luke Dashjr speaks common sense, which used to be immune from stupidity. But these are dark times, which makes the threat palpable from both Globalists and Fascists, Repugnantards and Demoncrits, just waiting for an excuse to turn the public against Bitcoin, as BlackRock waits patiently to fork us all
⚡Arvik⚡'s avatar
⚡Arvik⚡ 2 days ago
What is getting worse? How does protecting other information affect it's ability to act as money?
What is getting worse: - cost of transacting: the more non-p2p-cash transactions in a block, the higher the cost to get into a block for p2p cash txs - this impacts L2 exit costs and other operational transactions - higher cumulative cost of cpu, storage and network i/o of running a full node. higher costs hurts decentralization of nodes, serving archive blocks and maintaining a healthy p2p layer (mempool) - non-monetary tx create drift to exotic protocols being a backbone for scams, this is called ethereumization and we know how it ends How does tolerating garbage affect it's ability to act as money? - attracts scammers - makes bitcoin a vehicle for and of scammers - slows monetary user growth - delays hyperbitcoinization - abuse vectors are kept open leading to more complex code and friction to improve maintainability through simplicity Bitcoin has a purpose. Satoshi didn't create electronic, p2p library. By doing other things in a resource-limited environment, the secondary, latched-on abuses, evict the users of the purpose of money. eg. Money with spending limits is a worse money. Money costlier to transact is a worse money, and so on.