As founding father of the world’s largest bitcoin (BTC) treasury firm, Technique (previously MicroStrategy), many individuals have been hoping Michael Saylor would have taken a place of management on this yr’s civil battle between Bitcoin Core and Knots node operators.
Sadly, when an viewers member at his Bitcoin Treasuries NYC Unconference yesterday requested him in regards to the contentious change to OP_RETURN on the coronary heart of the disagreement, he failed to offer any passable reply.
Paul Sztorc referred to as it a “bulls*** pro-ossification answer” that demonstrated “no actual knowledge of the issues.”
“One of the most word salad statements I have ever heard,” commented one other.
Embroiled in disagreement for almost a yr over Bitcoin Core’s contentious lodging for arbitrary knowledge storage, Knots dissidents have been working software program to protest Core’s change.
In contrast to Core model 30 (v30), Knots software program will retain a deterrent towards most arbitrary datacarrier use of OP_RETURN, Bitcoin’s main storage technique for random media or laptop recordsdata.
Bitcoin Core is the preferred software program for node operators with over 3/4ths estimated dominance on varied trackers.
Knots, not like Core’s improve to 100,000 bytes with its v30 replace in October, plans to retain OP_RETURN’s datacarrier restrict under 90 bytes of their default mempool.
Searching for perception from the chief chairman of the world’s largest company treasury of BTC, an viewers member requested him what he thought of Core’s proposed improve.
Saylor averted a transparent response.
“I think protocol proposals, however well intentioned, can go horribly wrong,” he stated.
“I believe this debate we see proper now over OP_RETURN limits, that is truly a second-order or perhaps even a third-order change.
“It isn’t altering the quantity of BTC, which after all is an atomic zero-order change. It’s not altering the block measurement, which is a first-order change. It’s someplace within the second-and-a-half to 3rd order.
“But the reaction of the community, which is to reject it, an inflammatory reaction, I thought was a healthy response. It’s healthy to be skeptical of a third-order change to the protocol, because it might become a second order change. And if it’s a first-order change, it puts everything at risk.”
If I needed to stifle Bitcoin, trigger stagnation, and stop it from reaching its full potential… I might attempt to persuade people that its most expert builders are literally a menace.
— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) September 18, 2025
Saylor went on to explain the hazard of a really proficient, well-funded, well-intentioned developer making an attempt to do one thing “good” however not “great” for Bitcoin.
He highlighted the danger of unintended penalties or knock-on results from an in any other case healthful try and improve or modernize Bitcoin software program.
Some folks interpreted the response as pro-Knots or pro-ossification. Different folks disagreed that the feedback have been pro-Knots.
Total, the response confirmed little or no depth of understanding in regards to the technical disagreements between these two software program implementations.
Certainly, Saylor by no means talked about the quantity of knowledge storage at stake, the impact of the change on the price to run a node, the distinction between mempool defaults and base layer consensus, or the a number of years of opposition from the Knots neighborhood towards virtually all types of knowledge storage unrelated to the on-chain motion of BTC.
