Jimmy Song, a Bitcoin (BTC) developer and advocate, slammed the choice by Bitcoin Core builders to take away the OP_Return restrict for non-monetary information embedded on the Bitcoin blockchain within the upcoming Bitcoin Core 30 improve, calling it “fiat” mentality.
Song accused the Core builders of deflecting person considerations about eradicating the OP_Return restrict, which is at present 80 bytes in dimension, and ignoring the vital pushback from the Bitcoin group and node runners. He additionally mentioned:
“The concept that spam is troublesome to outline, and due to this ambiguity, we should not be making any distinctions in any respect within the software program, is a time-wasting argument from fiat politics the place you faux to not know the plain, so the precise debate can by no means get off the bottom — the non-monetary makes use of of Bitcoin are spam.
You can argue whether or not that is one thing fascinating or not, however saying you may’t outline it’s a stalling tactic meant to keep away from the actual argument about precise impression — significantly, the long-term impression of this transformation,” Song continued.
The OP_Return debate has raged on for practically six months, and is paying homage to the Bitcoin block dimension wars that happened between 2015 and 2017, which finally resulted in a tough fork of the Bitcoin protocol that spawned Bitcoin Cash (BCH), main some within the Bitcoin group to take a position if the OP_Return wars will end in an identical break up.
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Node runners vote with their toes in historic exodus to Bitcoin Knots
The choice by Bitcoin Core devs to unilaterally blow open the OP_Return information restrict has left the Bitcoin group divided and pushed document numbers of Bitcoin node runners to Bitcoin Knots, another implementation of the Bitcoin node software program.
This surge in nodes operating Bitcoin Knots, which now account for about 20% of the community, in comparison with about 1% in 2024, represents a near-vertical leap in simply 9 months.
Knots permits node runners to implement strict information dimension limits, which proponents argue is important to protect the decentralization of the Bitcoin protocol.
The Bitcoin ledger has generated about 680 gigabytes of knowledge because the inception of the decentralized protocol in 2009, because of the straightforward structure of Bitcoin and strict information limits.
Bitcoin’s low information storage necessities enable anybody to run a node on retail laptop {hardware} for as little as $300, democratizing entry and making certain most decentralization.
For comparability, higher-throughput blockchain networks and good contract platforms, which generate much more information, can value tens of hundreds of {dollars} to run and require specialised business {hardware}, that means solely rich traders and huge firms can run nodes and implement the consensus guidelines of these protocols.
Robust {hardware} necessities translate into elevated centralization of a blockchain protocol and a heightened threat that a number of nodes can collude to change the consensus guidelines or reverse transactions.
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