Antoine Poinsot

Bitcoin Core v30 Explained: Spam, Filters & the Knots Debate | Antoine Poinsot

- Bitcoin Core v30 removes the OP_RETURN data limit and makes package relay robust for Lightning, addressing design flaws rather than responding to spam concerns. - The Core vs Knots divide reflects fundamental disagreement about policy versus consensus changes, with Knots maintaining 1,500+ unreviewed modifications to Core's codebase. - UTXO set bloat is better prevented by allowing legitimate use cases (like BitVM penalty transactions) to use OP_RETURN rather than forcing them toward fake pubkeys. - Bitcoin Core operates on technical merit and code review, not ideology; developers assume corruption and design defenses accordingly, rather than being captured by politics. - Policy relay rules cannot stop miners from including transactions; tighter filters make the network irrelevant rather than preventing adoption of unwanted data on-chain. - Storing potentially illegal data on Bitcoin is an inherent protocol risk that cannot be solved by developers without breaking censorship resistance; the recent narrative shift appears to weaponize this concern.