You Aren’t Mad At Bitcoin Core, You’re Mad At Me

The current “debate”, and even calling it that is me being wildly over-charitable, over OP_RETURN is one of the most absurd situations I have ever seen in this space. I say that as someone who has been in Bitcoin for over a decade. Even the blocksize wars don’t hold a candle to this, at least in terms of utter absurdity. At least back then it was focused around an actual engineering disagreement. 

I want to comment on one thing today though. Stop directing your irrational rage and nonsense at the wrong targets. You aren’t mad at Bitcoin Core, you are mad at me. 

NO ONE can alter your node except you. NO ONE can make you download a version of Bitcoin Core that changes something except you. End of story. Full stop. YOU are responsible for your node, what it enforces, and what it does. You and you alone.

The entire issue of removing the OP_RETURN limit has nothing to do with Bitcoin Core “forcing” anything on anyone. They literally cannot do that, it is impossible to. All they are doing with this pull request is acknowledging the reality of people like me. They are making a logical engineering decision in the face of a minority of users who will not run clients enforcing current OP_RETURN limits. 

I will never run a node that is configured to enforce these limits. Ever. It’s that simple. I do not think it is my job, or my place, or my right to arbitrate or decide what types of consensus valid transactions other users make. Period. If it’s consensus valid and pays a fee, it’s not my business. If you have a problem with transactions that are consensus valid, address that problem where it should be, at the consensus level. As someone is so well known for quipping constantly in this nonsense: use the right tool for the job. 

Bitcoin is supposed to be a permissionless system, and that actually means something to me. 

As long as people like me will not enforce the relay filter on OP_RETURN that many people are upset with, your use of that filter is pointless. It accomplishes nothing. It does not stop these transactions from being relayed across the network. It does not stop them from getting mined in blocks. It accomplishes nothing. It is a pointless feature from an engineering perspective.

All Core developers proposed doing is to acknowledge this reality that is entirely outside of their control. 

Core developers are not the ones configuring datacarriersize to the maximum limit, or running LibreRelay, or building the private miner APIs/mempools that allow direct access to blockspace bypassing public mempools. They have nothing to do with any of this. 

All they are doing is reacting to the actions of others to mitigate harm to the network. 

If you want to get angry about this, that’s your prerogative. If you want to “take action” against the people who created this situation, that is also your prerogative. But direct it in the appropriate direction: the other users of Bitcoin who have created this situation that developers must react to. 

Don’t be a chickenshit directing your rage at a party not responsible for this situation just because you think they’re an easier target. Be a man and direct your anger where it belongs

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.