A Bitcoin fork proposed this weekend would start an activation interval for updating consensus guidelines to restrict knowledge storage unrelated to the on-chain motion of BTC
In a dramatic escalation of this yr’s OP_RETURN battle, pseudonymous dev “Dathon Ohm” revived Bitcoin Enchancment Proposal (BIP) 2017, additionally known as “Reduced Data Temporary Softfork,” that may turn out to be BIP 444 if somebody codes an activation consumer and formalizes it on GitHub.
The brand new blockchain would refuse many varieties of widespread knowledge storage for media, collectibles, roll-ups, and different novelty or enterprise makes use of at its base, consensus degree.
Particularly, the proposal escalates disagreement over Bitcoin Core v30’s relaxed strategy to queuing as much as 100KB of arbitrary knowledge per transaction in nodes’ reminiscence swimming pools (“mempools”).
It will make such contiguous chunks of information incompatible with the blockchain’s guidelines for legitimate transactions — not simply mempools’ default standardness guidelines.
For context, Bitcoin Core is the most well-liked 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 put knowledge 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 delicate fork is backward-compatible that enables older nodes to validate transaction validity on the identical blockchain.
Two activation proposals for a Bitcoin delicate fork
Flagging the rising reputation of Core v30 to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing listing, Dathon Ohm has proposed a twin activation technique for a delicate fork that might, if profitable, completely finish many varieties of on-chain knowledge storage corresponding to inscriptions, runes, ordinals, and roll-ups.
Curiously, as proposed, it will not finish Stamps — a extra difficult-to-censor kind of protocol that hacks knowledge onto the blockchain in a method that’s tough to stop on the consensus degree.
Dathon Ohm calls the 2 activation strategies “proactive” and “reactive.”
In essence, the proactive proposal has a placeholder block top of 987424 — doubtless January 2027 primarily based on common mining occasions — for an orderly “flag day” when individuals supporting the discount of on-chain knowledge storage would replace their consensus guidelines.
The reactive technique, in distinction, would activate randomly at any time over the following 15 months each time miners discover unlawful content material corresponding 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.
Though each activation strategies are alarming, the reactive technique earned probably the most criticism for its near-term impression.
Already alleging that its proponents are planning to make use of lawfare and ship threatening authorized letters to miners to stress them into operating this reactionary fork, this contentious activation technique is incomes probably the most consideration on social media.
Blaming Luke Dashjr and Bitcoin Mechanic
Many individuals are blaming Core developer Luke Dashjr and his OCEAN mining pool colleague, Bitcoin Mechanic, for Dathon Ohm’s proposal.
TheRage beforehand reported that Dashjr was planning for a tough fork. He responded by calling the article “completely unfounded lies.”
Over the weekend, many builders together with Dashjr had been gathering at Plan B, a Tether-sponsored Bitcoin convention in Switzerland.
Dashjr, along with duties like pull request evaluations and assigning BIP numbers, advocates for Knots, a forked model of Bitcoin Core that refuses to extend the OP_RETURN knowledge storage allowances of Core v30.
Some individuals believed that the in-person assembly supplied a chance for the Knots group to suggest this delicate fork.
