A Bitcoin fork proposed this weekend would begin an activation interval for updating consensus guidelines to restrict information storage unrelated to the on-chain motion of BTC
In a dramatic escalation of this 12 months’s OP_RETURN conflict, pseudonymous dev “Dathon Ohm” revived Bitcoin Enchancment Proposal (BIP) 2017, additionally known as “Reduced Data Temporary Softfork,” which may turn into BIP 444 if somebody codes an activation shopper and formalizes it on GitHub.
The brand new blockchain would refuse many sorts of widespread information storage for media, collectibles, roll-ups, and different novelty or enterprise makes use of at its base, consensus stage.
Particularly, the proposal escalates disagreement over Bitcoin Core v30’s relaxed method to queuing as much as 100KB of arbitrary information per transaction in nodes’ reminiscence swimming pools (“mempools”).
It might make such contiguous chunks of knowledge incompatible with the blockchain’s guidelines for legitimate transactions — not simply mempools’ default standardness guidelines.
For context, Bitcoin Core is the preferred software program for Bitcoin full node operators with 1000’s of operators on-line at any second.
OP_RETURN is the most typical Bitcoin scripting code to position information into transactions that’s unrelated to validating the motion of bitcoin (BTC).
Model 29 (v29) and prior of Bitcoin Core disallowed a number of OP_RETURN outputs per transaction, in addition to OP_RETURN outputs exceeding 84 bytes, in its default mempool.
Core v30, in distinction, accepts and relays a number of OP_RETURN outputs, in addition to OP_RETURN outputs of as much as 100KB, throughout its default mempool.
Bitcoin Core builders launched v30 on October 10.
BIP 444 is not a hardfork
Are you hardforking?
— Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) October 27, 2025
A Bitcoin exhausting fork creates a backward-incompatible blockchain requiring all nodes to improve, whereas a smooth fork is backward-compatible that enables older nodes to validate transaction validity on the identical blockchain.
Two activation proposals for a Bitcoin smooth fork
Flagging the rising reputation of Core v30 to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing record, Dathon Ohm has proposed a twin activation methodology for a smooth fork that may, if profitable, completely finish many sorts of on-chain information storage equivalent to inscriptions, runes, ordinals, and roll-ups.
Apparently, as proposed, it will not finish Stamps — a extra difficult-to-censor sort of protocol that hacks information onto the blockchain in a manner that’s tough to stop on the consensus stage.
Dathon Ohm calls the 2 activation strategies “proactive” and “reactive.”
In essence, the proactive proposal has a placeholder block peak of 987424 — doubtless January 2027 based mostly on common mining occasions — for an orderly “flag day” when folks supporting the discount of on-chain information storage would replace their consensus guidelines.
The reactive methodology, in distinction, would activate randomly at any time over the subsequent 15 months at any time when miners discover unlawful content material equivalent to CSAM and refuse to incorporate these transactions in Bitcoin’s blockchain.
“In this case, the new rules are effective on the very next block,” wrote Dathon Ohm.
The reactive smooth fork activation would reorganize Bitcoin’s blockchain. If activated by a bunch of miners responding to a authorized problem, for instance, this reorganization introduces the potential for double-spending assaults.
Dathon Ohm’s BIP motivation speaks about “legal and moral risks” to node operators who don’t undertake the brand new fork as a regarding, future risk. Jameson Lopp known as this an “underlying implication of using legal coercion.”
Some folks consider that proponents of the smooth fork are planning to make use of lawfare equivalent to sending authorized letters to miners to stress them into operating this reactionary fork. The phrases “legal” and “law” seem a mixed 11 occasions within the writer’s BIP motivation.
TheRage leaked textual content messages involving Luke Dashjr discussing plans for a fork as a consequence of authorized issues about information internet hosting by node operators.
Dashjr, along with duties like pull request critiques and assigning BIP numbers, advocates for Knots, a forked model of Bitcoin Core that refuses to extend the OP_RETURN information storage allowances of Core v30.
Edit 21:05 UTC, Oct 27: Added particulars about blockchain reorg threat of a reactive smooth fork, highlighted authorized insinuations from the BIP motivation, deleted a declare a few Knots assembly in Lugano.
