<unnamed>

Public Key

npub10lrzse62vddqwsscqcmjurmhtxh545zf6q7ez9q25ddlc7p7saeqems9ug

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8l33gva9xxks8ggvqvdewpam4nt626pyaq0v3zs92xklu0qlgwuspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds0jr6u2

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Last Notes

2026-02-21 09:54:19 UTC

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Core Devs made a massive controversial change to the default node behavior. Sure, it wasn’t a consensus change, but we should tighten consensus rules on Bitcoin to mitigate the problem of non-financial use-cases. If we had already tightened consensus then the recent Core dev recklessness would not have been possible, and they wouldn’t have felt compelled to do it because the Citrea use-cases would have already been forced to not spam the blockchain due to consensus rules. It’s time to re-affirm that Bitcoin is money not arbitrary data storage. Consensus changes are the way to do this correctly.

2026-02-21 09:16:53 UTC

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@nprofile…2uzc

2026-02-21 09:16:25 UTC

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@ODELL - this sounds like something opensats should fund as an alternative to both Core and Knots.

2026-02-21 09:05:06 UTC

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Agreed - Core definitely overstepped with that massive controversial reckless loosening. As a long-term software engineer and manager of software engineering teams, I would have fired them all for that lack of understanding of the unintended consequences and deliberate side-stepping of controls by loosening so much because they don’t want to go back to the community for future loosening. What in your opinion is the “fix” because what I’ve heard from you so far is to run Core v29 and not upgrade, but that’s not really a “fix” to the problem that a very very small number of Core developers made a massive unnecessary high risk change to the default node implementation that a lot of people brainlessly upgrade to. Having lots of nodes switch to Knots is not ideal either because that’s a different concentration risk. Is OpenSats actively funding some other (non-Core) implementations to mitigate this obvious risk to Bitcoin?

2026-02-17 11:19:07 UTC

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I’m going to assume you’re trolling. Most spammers don’t use OP_RETURN because they get a 75% discount if they embed their spam using SegWit. OP_RETURN is about VC-backed spammers who want to “comply” with the “mainstream BTC standards” so their investors don’t get spooked. E.g. Citrea that is VC-backed by Lopp.

2026-02-12 10:20:42 UTC

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For those reading the thread (because you obviously already understand this - and that’s why you keep pushing it), 1 BTC for you is far less of a commitment than 1 BTC for many other people.
That’s if the bet makes sense. I’m not sure this bet even makes sense.
I think the issue people are raising is that spam is bad and that we should discourage spam. Your response should also be that spam is bad - but you refuse to say that, so people reasonably conclude that you have a financial interest in spamming the Bitcoin blockchain.
We can define spam as non-monetary use of Bitcoin - then legitimately argue about how to identify that via dust outputs etc…
We should also agree that fighting spam is not really hard (it’s tedious, but not difficult from a technical perspective. Knots has some very simple spam filters Core could adopt - that would need to be periodically updated as spammers change tactics).

2026-02-12 09:50:14 UTC

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Who was claiming that “Bitcoin Core v30 was going to result in a massive node crash / network outage”? It seems like you offered a bet that nobody would reasonably take and now claim it means people were wrong about something vaguely related.
Instead, can you please explain the rationale for the Core v30 changes to OP_RETURN and why they are beneficial for Bitcoin as money? I still have not heard a single rational explanation for that change.

2026-02-12 09:42:02 UTC

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We should not be arguing about this. Spammers say you can’t define “spam”. It’s not that difficult- if you need to attach large amounts of arbitrary data, or hide it in massive amounts of unspendable “dust” outputs, then it’s not a financial transaction, and belongs somewhere else that’s not on the bitcoin blockchain. I agree there’s a bit of a slippery slope here - like how side-chains anchor on the base layer blockchain, and we should periodically reconsider how much arbitrary data is needed for financially adjacent use-cases.

2026-02-12 09:22:04 UTC

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Weird - this seems like we agree on spam being bad, but in the other thread you are advocating “permissionlessness” (I.e. spamming). What am I misunderstanding?

2026-02-12 09:11:05 UTC

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If miners including it is sufficient for it being ok, that’s ignoring the centralization impact of the externalities they impose on nodes. If miners choose to include even more toxic arbitrary data due to the lax Core v30 filters, or massive amounts of non-financial data (even if it’s not toxic) then fewer people will run nodes, and Bitcoin gets more centralized, which increases the risks of (future) censorship.

2026-02-12 08:55:27 UTC

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I think this libertarian view of “permissionless” (without any boundaries whatsoever) is a risk for bitcoin. Yes, the protocol allows it, but that doesn’t make it good for bitcoin, and until Core v30, default node policy discouraged it. We should agree that bitcoin needs to focus on being money and leave the other use-cases to other protocols/platforms. I’m not a fan of BIP-110, but Core really dropped the ball on spam and that’s not good for bitcoin. Are you running a Core v30 node?

2026-02-12 08:37:02 UTC

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Please do the work to understand this issue. If you believe that bitcoin is money, then large amounts of arbitrary data storage is not acceptable because it weakens bitcoin as money (because nodes incur the cost of storing the data while miners extract the value of mining it). Saying that all financial transactions are ok, and that attaching large amounts of non-financial data is not ok, is not *censorship* - it’s common sense. Try depositing a check at your bank and attaching a poster size photo and requiring your bank to archive that photo and make it available to everyone forever - no matter what the photo is of. That’s not a monetary use-case, and has no place in the bitcoin ecosystem.

2025-12-19 03:32:27 UTC

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They took their time - low time preference was their super power. For example, it took 70 years to carve this chapel in an underground salt mine in Poland: https://www.visitwieliczkasaltmine.com/st-kingas-chapel

2025-12-19 03:20:50 UTC

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Wow - would not have guessed that!

2025-12-19 02:14:04 UTC

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Really enjoyed this episode. Main points of difference with Rupert are that regulating AI won’t work, and we need to roll out lots of small nuclear plants (that are much faster to bring online than traditional plants) to secure our energy future in a carbon neutral way. Oklo, NuScale, Westinghouse etc…
https://oklo.com/newsroom/news-details/2025/Oklo-Breaks-Ground-on-First-Aurora-Powerhouse/default.aspx
https://westinghousenuclear.com/innovation/evinci-microreactor/
https://www.nuscalepower.com/products/nuscale-power-module

2025-12-18 21:11:46 UTC

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I don’t bother anymore, and occasionally a normie will ask me what’s happening with Bitcoin so I’ll give them a very brief update.

2025-12-18 21:07:16 UTC

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Most people still don’t understand where inflation comes from. It’s going to take a long time for mainstream people to understand just that - never mind all the other benefits Bitcoin delivers. We’re still very early. Have patience.

2025-12-18 21:03:20 UTC

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We should teach them how (and why) to avoid the worst aspects of the internet. If you control their device they will seek it out on a friend’s device.

2025-12-17 18:33:44 UTC

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Wow! Just confirmed that myself on Google. DuckDuckGo still returns it as the first result.

2025-12-16 05:44:53 UTC

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https://forbestadvice.com/Religion_Spirituality/Images/Jesus_Dionysus_Krishna_Mithra_Horus.jpg

2025-12-16 05:17:21 UTC

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Smart kid!

2025-12-16 05:12:15 UTC

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The direct democracy via referendums makes sense to me - there are some US towns that already do this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
The protectionist tax policy that favors local residents over non-residents is interesting. I wonder how practical it is to do without any loopholes and legal challenges - e.g. companies are legally “people” so a company could become a “resident”. Or a non-resident could hire a resident who is legally the “owner” but contractually required to pass on the benefits of ownership to the non-resident. Seems like a tricky thing to get right. Maybe vesting periods for ownership and sliding scales based on length of ownership etc…

2025-12-12 06:50:57 UTC

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Drivers licenses save lives

2025-12-04 23:15:17 UTC

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Probably not true.
The benefit only occurred for women and not for men (see Figure 5 in the link below). That is weird because men and women have similar brain chemistries (although there are some small differences due to hormones like estrogen and testosterone). The simplest explanation is that it’s either a problem with the ‘natural’ experiment, the assumptions, the accuracy of the data, or how the data was analyzed. Not that the vaccine magically reduces dementia risks for women but not men.
Good scientists apply Occam’s Razor - choosing the simplest explanation. Scientists who have a profit motive, however, manipulate the data until they can make some claim of effectiveness that results in more research funding for them or profits for their company.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08800-x

2025-11-26 04:45:27 UTC

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I think I’ve had most success getting people to download a really simple lightning wallet like “Muun” (happy to hear about any recommendations for simpler newbie lightning wallets because Muun has it’s limitations) then send some sats into the wallet over lightning so they see how fast and easy a Bitcoin transaction is for even small amounts of money. They also like getting money for free - so that helps.

2025-11-26 04:30:45 UTC

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I send my family/friends to Strike because the app is easy to use, DCA has no fees, and auto-withdrawal to cold storage also has no fees (when they’re ready to learn about cold storage). Haven’t tried River so can’t compare them, but heard good things about River. For less technical people, who are scared of real Bitcoin, I explain how they can buy FBTC in their Fidelity account if they want exposure to Bitcoin without needing to learn anything new.

2025-11-26 03:35:53 UTC

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Depends on your risk tolerance, which also depends on your age. Not everyone has enough time to start over, that’s why boomers tend to not be Bitcoiners, and they prefer gold and stocks. I wouldn’t tell my grandpa to go all-in on Bitcoin, but I would tell him to at least get some Bitcoin. Same risk tolerance trade-off can also apply at younger ages - if you just signed a contract to buy a house and need the down payment in 90 days from now, you probably should have that in cash.

2025-11-25 23:52:51 UTC

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Thanks for posting that - I’m not on X so would never have seen it. “One persons spam is another persons content” is the crux of this whole issue. The current cadre of developers in Core believe that anything paying fees (to miners) belongs in the blockchain (that node operators pay to relay and store forever). That makes no economic sense, and anyone who believes Bitcoin is money will agree that non-monetary use cases belong in side chains or layer 2 protocols where they pay for their own distribution and storage. But VCs like free, secure storage that someone else pays for, and VCs fund Core developers, so it’s probably not a coincidence that Core is acting this way. Everyone in the Bitcoin community who isn’t also a shitcoiner should be able to get behind the idea that Bitcoin needs to push back against wasteful non-monetary use cases. It’s sad that so many focus on the personalities of the main proponents on both sides because as Bitcoiners we should care about the facts and do the work to understand the implications of the changes made in Core v30.

2025-11-24 22:43:10 UTC

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A bit different to his 51% attack response: “we will kick those bastards off the network, rework the protocol around them”. Same should apply to non-monetary use cases.
https://youtube.com/shorts/P3K70rkaCJc

2025-11-22 20:10:19 UTC

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Keep up the good work informing people about Knots and BIP 444. You should also meet more Bitcoin Core devs. The ones I’ve met are good people and not enemies of Bitcoin. They just have views about spam that I happen to disagree with.

2025-11-22 18:39:20 UTC

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Nobody can accurately predict Bitcoin cycle tops, so don’t fall into the trap of thinking you did. We don’t really know if this cycle is over yet or if four year cycles are even still a thing.

2025-11-16 02:41:40 UTC

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If you like degustation menus, you should try out the Michelin starred Field restaurant the next time you’re in Prague. Their 10 course degustation menu and wine pairing is amazing and there was actual gold leaf in one of the desserts. I’m not a gold bug, but you can eat gold and can’t eat Bitcoin :)

2025-10-18 00:09:29 UTC

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Wrong - Bitcoin core v30 just changed a default that’s been in place for around a decade with no credible reason for the change beyond “trust me bro - it’s too technical for you to understand”. Critics point out that allowing unlimited data storage in transactions is bad for Bitcoin as money and awesome for shitcoiners. Core replies with a lot of signatures on a statement that still doesn’t explain the change but appeals to their authority. Remind you of anyone?
https://blossom.primal.net/305e10725ed3074c03e0b4689bcbf80a4693443377a0263c5a4149c7065e3b8f.jpg

2025-10-18 00:00:32 UTC

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Duuuuudddeee - learn about this issue. Core v30 opens the floodgates for VC backed startups to store huge amounts of arbitrary data on the Bitcoin blockchain. That’s not what Bitcoin is about. Bitcoin is money - not storage. Knots doesn’t magically fix the spam problem, but they are working on it rather than enabling it.
Do the work to read the Core developer mailing list and GitHub threads. Core rejected this change twice in the past two years because it’s bad for Bitcoin and therefore controversial. In v30 they pushed through unlimited data storage despite there still being a lot of disagreement - AND they are still unable to make a coherent argument for why we need to change this default that’s been working fine since 2014.
https://blossom.primal.net/396ef88d39e55c9a6258e74e2627bd90ee4af8a9d1f92a77671437fd56e5259b.png

2025-10-12 03:38:28 UTC

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Although - you’ve gotta agree that Peter Todd and the other Bitcoin-is-storage (because they can make a quick buck) people are misguided.

2025-10-11 17:27:09 UTC

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I think v30 remaining under 10% of the network is the most import thing to limit the ability of v30 to route around other nodes. Libre Relay however presents a different problem because they connect to each other to bypass other node filters.
Near-term, we need a solid team of devs to build excellent filters for non-financial transactions and long-term get enough support for some consensus rule changes to stop non-financial abuse of the Bitcoin network. I’m not confident we will ever have enough support to change the consensus rules for valid transactions though.

2025-10-11 08:27:28 UTC

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You don’t need to upgrade to v30 and anyone who is running v30 can change the default configuration to restore the OP_RETURN datacarriersize limit thats in v29.1. Or you can run Knots. Or you can prune your node. There’s lots of options - the world isn’t ending just because v30 was released.

2025-10-11 08:09:24 UTC

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It’s not propaganda - this is exactly what happened to the BSV (Bitcoin fork) when they changed OP_RETURN limits to 100k:
https://thenextweb.com/news/bitcoinsv-blockchain-child-abuse-imagery

2025-10-11 02:39:15 UTC

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That’s interesting - I hadn’t seen that.

2025-10-10 23:29:51 UTC

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I think you need to justify this view more. It could be correlation rather than causation. I share your suspicions but so far everything I’ve found points to Chaincode Labs being funded by a couple of wealthy finance guys who love Bitcoin. I watched an interview with one of the Chaincode founders - nothing pro-spam there: https://youtu.be/y8Im8gS3u6o

2025-10-10 06:42:39 UTC

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“Where does content filtering stop once we accept it as legitimate?”
Filtering non-financial data isn’t censorship - it’s a bug-fix for an exploit.
By default, Knots allows small OP_RETURN payloads of 42 bytes that are sufficient for basic financial use-cases. There will be support to increase that default for future financial use-cases (and Knots already allows node operators to change the default).

2025-10-10 06:29:20 UTC

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There’s a big difference between “expanding its capacity” to say 160 bytes and removing the limit entirely as Core v30 does. I think there would be much less concern if this was an increase to 160 bytes to support some vaguely plausible use-case.

2025-10-10 06:04:51 UTC

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“Spam will continue until consensus changes.” - I completely agree with you.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t run nodes to filter it. And yes, I also know spam flows around nodes that filter it.
I see Knots as a signal to the network that Bitcoin is money, and spam is worth fighting. If enough people run Knots, then Core devs and eventually maybe even miners will decide to join the fight against spam. Blocks that mined spam will be relayed slower by filtering nodes than blocks that didn’t mine spam because compact block propagation requires the previously filtered transactions to be re-downloaded by a node to validate the block and this propagation delay provides a small economic incentive for miners.
In a - probably unrealistically ideal - world, a few years from now we might have enough support for some consensus changes to eradicate the main hacks for embedding non-financial data. We’ll only get there if we at least try to combat spam between now and then.

2025-10-10 05:36:15 UTC

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@walker - you owe it to your audience to become better educated about the significant and unnecessary risks that Core v30 poses for Bitcoin and stop trolling the Knots people for fun. Core v30 is indeed a serious risk.
This current debate motivated me to do the work of attending Bitcoin Core developer meetups to understand their personalities and perspectives, read the source code to understand the specific differences between Core policy and Knots policy, read the discussion threads of Core developers to see how they reached this decision, read the “Bitcoin Development Philosophy” book Chaincode Labs funded, and learn the history of the conflicts between Luke and current Core developers/maintainers.
I don’t align with many of Luke’s opinions, but his approach to filtering out non-financial data is valid. Core’s arguments are hand-wavy at best and their “intentions” are secondary to the consequences. For example, v30 opens the floodgates for a new wave of spam from VC-backed startups that will now have “approved” ways to store the large amounts of arbitrary data they want to store (and VCs don’t like the risk that using hacks to embed data could result in their business model being broken by a future release of Core, they don’t want to fund a layer 2 network for their data, and they don’t like the centralization risks and increased costs of needing to collude with miners to bypass node filters). Indeed, the threat of Citrea spamming the network with large amounts data that can never be pruned and permanently damaging efficiency is one of the things motivating the misguided changes in v30. Knots is “proof by existence” that Core could indeed filter at least some of the non-financial data, but they instead chose to reject Luke’s PR because filtering spam doesn’t align with their philosophy of trying to get the whole network of mempools to more accurately reflect exactly what miners choose to mine - including spam. There is technical nuance to their reasoning for this philosophy that makes sense, but it’s misguided when examined in the broader context of the entire Bitcoin network as a complex system of interdependent components. “Systems Thinking” as Saylor likes to call it. Existing spammers are unlikely to start using OP_RETURN to embed their data because they get a 75% Segwit discount by continuing to embed it via the hacks they currently use.
Nick Szabo (unusual background as an OG cryptographer who also attended law school) makes plenty of reasonable points about the legal risks v30 causes for Bitcoin - so I won’t repeat them here.
In a nutshell, v30 doesn’t mitigate existing spam, opens the floodgates to new spammers, increases the legal risks and operational costs for node runners, and increases reputational risks for the whole Bitcoin ecosystem. But on the upside, nodes should validate newly mined blocks a fraction of a second faster and estimate fees a little better. Things the vast majority of Bitcoiners don’t care about.
If you do the work to go down this rabbit-hole, then you too will be concerned about Core v30, and how it could be placing your future financial security in jeopardy (alongside everyone else who relies heavily on Bitcoin).
Every single node operator should run Knots to signal their view that Bitcoin is money and spam is worth fighting. And continue running Knots until the Core dev team joins the fight against non-financial data spam instead of legitimizing it and making spamming even easier.

2025-10-09 04:24:53 UTC

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It’s good that you’re not upgrading yet. Take the time to think through the impact of opening the doors for a new wave of non-financial spam from VC-backed startups that want to use an “officially approved” way to store their data in the blockchain (because a one-time mining fee for permanent storage forever on full-nodes is cheaper than funding their own layer 2 network). The existing hacks spammers use get a 75% Segwit discount compared to using OP_RETURN, so those spammers aren’t going to do extra work so they can pay more. We need to filter what they’re already doing - that’s the battle Knots has taken on and Core has refused to attempt because they are philosophically aligned with miners - “any consensus valid transaction a miner could mine should be relayed and stored by all nodes”.
Long-term, we need a third option that takes the latest Core version and patches in reasonable default filters (that node operators can turn on/off themselves), with no personality-related drama like we currently see between Core and Knots.
Short-term we need to run Knots (which at the moment is essentially Core plus tighter spam filters) to signal to the network that we want Core developers to fight spam instead of worrying about how to enable their buddies at VC-backed startups to spam the network in “approved” ways.

2025-10-09 04:04:09 UTC

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Do the work. Read the code. Think for yourself. Stop the ad-hominem attacks.
Existing spammers won’t move to using OP_RETURN to pay 4x what they pay now. We need to filter out what they are already doing (which is the battle Knots is taking on). New spammers who aren’t fee-sensitive and want their spam “officially” allowed will use OP_RETURN so they don’t need to pay extra to miners to bypass node filters. Spammers of horrific content who don’t want to go directly to miners and risk being identified will relay their spam via v30 nodes to stay anonymous.
This isn’t rocket-science. You don’t need to be technical to understand the potential downsides of v30. If you do happen to be technical, then look at the filters in the Knots policy code - it’s not complicated and Core should adopt it instead of making spamming easier in v30.

2025-10-09 03:50:21 UTC

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Yes - Hal is wrong about everything here.
Core v29.1 is the latest official release, and Core v30 will be a disaster for Bitcoin by unleashing a new wave of non-financial spam. Current spammers exploiting the Segwit discount are not going to start using OP_RETURN data because it’s 4 times the cost compared to what they do now. New VC-backed spammers who want to “play by the rules” so their entire business model of using full nodes as free permanent storage if they pay miners a one-time fee doesn’t suddenly get filtered out are going to use OP_RETURN for very large data payloads.
Preventing as much non-financial spam as possible is the correct choice at this moment in time. Run Knots!

2025-10-08 07:49:08 UTC

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I re-read your note, and if you define “mitigate” as get the spam into pruneable OP_RETURN data - I guess you are correct that Core are trying to “mitigate” it, but the transaction cost for the spammer is 4x more via OP_RETURN than it is via other existing hacks, so we should try to protect against those hacks (like Knots attempts) because spammers are going to keep using the hacks that cost them less money and are unlikely to move their spam to OP_RETURN. New VC-backed startups that want to play nice and not get filtered out in future may choose to use the large storage capacity Core v30 provides via OP_RETURN - but that’s a whole new category of non-financial data spam that we will need to fight against.

2025-10-08 07:35:44 UTC

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“Imagine if Knots and Core worked together with Knots removing as much spam as possible, then Core mitigating the remainder.”
Knots uses something like 95% maybe even 99% Core code (I don’t know the exact stat) so in a sense they are already working together because any improvements Core makes get included in Knots. Then Knots adds in some additional filters and tighter default configurations to fight spam.
One of the key points in this current drama is that Core *IS NOT* attempting to mitigate spam. Older versions of Core permit the runes/ordinals spam that Knots filters. Core v30 gives up on filtering spam and is making the OP_RETURN spam bucket size unlimited in node policy because miners can already technically mine that spam into consensus-valid blocks if they provide a direct side-entrance that bypasses node filters (like Marathon’s slipstream product where spammers send spam directly to the miner).
There are many problems with Core v30 forcing nodes to store and relay all spam by default. One (non-technical) problem is that it signals that all spam is welcome in Bitcoin. Miners at least have terms of service for spammers and an incentive to not include the worst spam imaginable via their custom side-entrances whereas relaying that particularly objectionable spam via nodes obscures the point of origin. And that spam has nothing to do with Bitcoin as money, so it’s an attack on Bitcoin that we should defend against.

2025-10-08 06:33:07 UTC

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It’s better to be an “undecided voter” than a sheep. I hope this means you’ll run an older version of Core until you decide if v30 is as bad as the pro-Knots people claim it is. Good for you!
This debate motivated me to do the work and look at the Core and Knots node policy code on GitHub. Knots 29.1 node policy is essentially Core 29.1 policy plus some sensible additional spam filters, some stylistic code changes (that quite frankly made it more difficult for me to compare Knots with Core), and tighter anti-spam defaults (e.g. the data carrier size limit for OP_RETURN data is 42 bytes - enough for timestamps and signatures but not ideal for spam).
When I saw that the filters in Knots are pragmatic, it made me question why Core rejected including them. I believe that Bitcoin is money and not arbitrary data storage, and that we should continue to discourage and fight arbitrary non-financial data. I now run Knots.
I’m grateful that us node runners have a choice and I’m glad you’re taking your time to decide what’s aligned with your values instead of blindly updating.

2025-10-06 03:19:52 UTC

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What’s your point Dave? If this is accurate, then for the past 90 days, spam was 40% of transactions by count but only paid 10% of the fees and because of the 75% witness discount were only 20% of the weight. Since we already know how to identify the existing spam attacks to produce charts like this, all node runners should aggressively filter them out so greedy miners can charge spammers more to bypass the nodes. We should also move our hash rate away from any mining pools that don’t filter spam to make mining spam more expensive.
Bitcoin is money - not a storage layer for spammers and VC startups that don’t want to pay for their own layer 2. We need to all be working together to filter non-financial spam so they take this “innovation” to Ethereum and other chains where it belongs.
This is why we run Knots!

2025-10-06 02:49:03 UTC

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When was that?

2025-10-06 02:21:01 UTC

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I’m calling BS on what’s been happening with the stats. Knots 29.1 reached 3409 nodes vs. 3333 for Core v29.1 last night, and right now I see 3289 Knots 29.1 vs. 3277 of Core 29.1 on Clark Moody’s Dashboard. Seems unlikely all those nodes went offline in a day. Smells to me like people on both sides are spinning up cloud nodes to move the stats in their favor then don’t want to keep paying for them so shut them down.

2025-10-05 19:06:52 UTC

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This guide on building a Raspberry Pi 5 node with 2TB Nvme is solid but then immediately upgrade it to Knots because it defaults to Core. Paul’s code guide is a bit old, but it’s easy to edit the script so it upgrades you to Knots 29.1 instead of the older version of Knots. Total cost is about $300. The case he recommends for the Pi is awesome and the node runs silent, cool, and has plenty of high throughput storage, RAM, and lots of CPU horsepower so should run fine for a few years - especially if you get the 16GB RAM version of the Raspberry Pi.
https://bennet.org/blog/building-a-bitcoin-node-with-raspberry-pi/
https://paulscode.com/t/switching-to-knots-on-raspiblitz/654

2025-10-05 17:34:05 UTC

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Great stuff!
Running Knots sends a clear signal to the community that we want to fight spam - not enable it.
It was encouraging to see that Knots v29.1 (20250903) became the most popular node version overnight at 14.06% - just ahead of Core 29.1 at 13.63%.
https://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/dashboard/

2025-10-05 17:20:03 UTC

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Core v29 is definitely better than v30 because by default it only allows one OP_RETURN with datacarriersize of 83 bytes instead of the way v30 by default allows multiple OP_RETURNs to fill the entire block with arbitrary non-financial data.
I wouldn’t say Core v29.1 is “on par” with Knots because Knots v29.1 also has mitigations for inscriptions and runes, but Core v29.1 doesn’t.
There’s lots of technical nuance, propaganda, and character attacks from both sides in this current debate, but IMO it boils down this:
(1) node runners who want to signal to the network that they believe Bitcoin is money and we should fight against spam should be running Knots;
(2) those who are ok with their node storing all sorts of non-financial arbitrary data should enable that by running Core v30; and
(3) those who haven’t done the work to understand this issue should continue running an older version of Core and not upgrade until they understand the issue.

2025-10-05 15:44:03 UTC

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- listened in disbelief to Bitcoin Core devs explain v30 change
- read code in policy.cpp in both Core and Knots
- got frustrated that Knots doesn’t make it trivial to review its changes to Core because it includes other stylistic code changes and bug patches that make diff verbose
- did the work anyway to understand the differences
- concluded that the extra policy code in Knots is reasonable
- now running Knots 29.1

2025-10-04 18:55:48 UTC

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The thing to watch is if people running older versions of Core upgrade to Core v30 or Knots. Anyone who does the work to understand the difference that Knots = “Bitcoin is money”, vs. Core v30 = “Bitcoin is easy storage of large amounts of non-financial data on nodes plus also money” is likely to see through the ad-hominem attacks and FUD (from both sides) and choose Knots.

2025-10-04 18:49:19 UTC

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Unfortunately it won’t stay that way. We need to keep educating node runners about the difference between Knots and Core v30 so the momentum stays with Knots. I’d like to see those old versions of Core gradually migrate to Knots.

2025-10-04 18:45:04 UTC

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It’s the rate of change that’s been impressive. Of the people changing their node version recently, most have decided to move to Knots.

2025-10-04 18:43:35 UTC

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Let’s keep this momentum going - as more people understand that Knots means Bitcoin is money; Core v30 means Bitcoin is money and also easy free data storage on nodes; and Core < v30 means Bitcoin is money and also inscriptions and runes stored on nodes; I think they will upgrade from older versions of Core to Knots. I think most of us are here because we believe in Bitcoin as money and want all the other non-financial “innovation” to happen elsewhere like Ethereum.

2025-10-02 19:31:12 UTC

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It’s not a storm in a teacup. It inspired me to do the work and look at the code. Knots has a very small amount of additional code in policy.cpp to mitigate inscriptions, runes, and other non-financial transactions. I’ve found no credible explanation for why Core chose not to also include this code when Luke offered it in a PR. Yes I read the thread - the PR was rejected on philosophical grounds. Matthew Kratter has a short clip explaining the history of you don’t want to read the thread. If anyone thinks Bitcoin should only be money and not arbitrary storage, they should either patch those filters into the version of Core they choose to run, or simply run Knots.

2025-10-02 06:37:32 UTC

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I encourage you to read the code and verify for yourself. It’s not complicated code. I read the policy.cpp source code on GitHub and concluded that Knots 29.x uses virtually the same policy code as Core 29.x and adds a few filters that Core should have adopted to mitigate non-financial arbitrary data like inscriptions. Long-term, some of these filters would need occasional updates like a game of whack-a-mole if spammers keep changing their code (e.g. “tx.nLockTime == 21”), but the fact that a hack will be mitigated discourages people from doing it. It’s like locking your front door - that won’t stop a hardened criminal, but it will stop a lot of petty crime and encourage them to go to a different neighborhood.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/29.x/src/policy/policy.cpp
https://github.com/bitcoinknots/bitcoin/blob/29.x-knots/src/policy/policy.cpp

2025-10-02 04:56:40 UTC

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I agree that we should listen to people who want to build, and even make conservative changes to accommodate them. Core could start to filter inscriptions by default and engage in the whack-a-mole task of continuing to add filters that prevent and discourage arbitrary data outside OP_RETURN, then simultaneously increase the data carrier size limit so OP_RETURN can carry a little more data - e.g. for some reason Citrea apparently needs 144 bytes, so we could set a new limit a little larger than that. I think Adam Back threw around 160 bytes as a compromise number to resolve the v30 drama. That sounds reasonable to me as long as we also stomp out data embedding everywhere else.

2025-10-02 04:43:54 UTC

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I think your hunch is correct. I also think the increase in Knots nodes and potentially other nodes (that are less politically charged) will produce a healthier balance of power. We should have more diversity at the node level as long as they all use the same consensus code to avoid unexpected hard forks.

2025-10-02 04:37:40 UTC

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What am I missing in that thread?
Reasonable financial transactions are not as large as this extreme example, so if the node filters out and doesn’t relay excessively large (non-financial) transactions based on size and doesn’t waste any CPU trying to understand what is in those transactions, the DoS problem doesn’t exist, and occasionally the node estimates fees and what will be mined in upcoming blocks poorly because a miner received and mined a giant transaction out of band. I’m obviously not understanding what the concern is and would like to understand it.

2025-10-01 22:00:38 UTC

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Good decision. I decided to diff the policy.cpp code of Core and Knots to understand the key differences - I can recommend that. The code is not difficult to read.

2025-10-01 20:37:58 UTC

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The “pick one” is a false choice. We can have both and they complement each other. If enough nodes run Knots, it will make spamming more expensive because of the additional miner fees needed to bypass nodes.

2025-10-01 20:32:59 UTC

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Some types of centralization are good. Would you like people to throw garbage all over the street (including your front lawn - where you need to deal with it) or use “centralized” garbage cans?

2025-10-01 20:16:13 UTC

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That’s kind of like asking big tobacco’s lawyers if smoking is bad for your health. It’s telling that some of them did acknowledge that v30 may increase legal & political risks.

2025-10-01 20:01:08 UTC

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Knots for now.
Unfortunately Core v29 chooses not to filter inscriptions or that would have been my choice.
Would like to see Core adopt the same filters of non-financial data that Knots already has, and make them defaults in v31 so we can all move on from this drama.
If Core doubles-down on the blockchain being for arbitrary data storage in v31, then they’re shitcoiners not bitcoiners and we will need to create a new reference version.

2025-10-01 14:09:03 UTC

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I do think we may need some more experienced devs to take the time to maintain the codebase. Most of the Core devs I met were relatively young. I hope they get a lot of mentoring from the Bitcoin Core OG developers. There’s also a risk that their friends who work at startups that want to embed data in the blockchain are directly or indirectly influencing the perspective of Core devs. I worry there might be a revolving door problem like we see in other industries that could result in Core devs making decisions that benefit startups they then go to work for, or previously worked for. This current OP_RETURN decision by Core seems like it benefits startups and miners and disadvantages node operators by increasing the storage/compute/legal burden on nodes.
Here’s my straw-man. VC investors don’t like the risk that a startup’s hacky way of storing data in the blockchain might at some point get filtered by so many nodes that the startup is forced to pay extra to miners like Marathon to embed the data in the blockchain because the miners could choose to extract a lot of value from the startups. Getting Core to standardize on removing the OP_RETURN limit so it becomes normal and accepted to embed arbitrary amounts of data without needing to pay additional miner fees for something like slipstream is good for startups. Having implementations like Knots that could add a new filter to prevent the startup’s approach to storing data is a risk to the profitability of those startups.
I believe that Bitcoin is money, and if a startup wants to store large amounts of data, then they should fund their own L2 network (like the lightning network where lightning node operators share in the fees) and just use the Bitcoin L1 network via very compact amounts of data (i.e. crypto signatures or hashes of data) that’s sufficient for them to leverage the proof-of-work security of the Bitcoin network. The current startups that want to embed their arbitrary data in Bitcoin are exploiting nodes for permanent data storage where they only need to pay a one-time (currently very cheap - but it won’t always be cheap) mining fee. I see this as an abuse of the nodes.
What are your thoughts on this? Am I overreacting to the current drama?

2025-10-01 13:20:01 UTC

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Separating out consensus rules so all implementations can use them sounds like a good idea. I didn’t check if the Knots consensus code is identical to Core but will check that before I upgrade.
The silver lining for me in this Knots vs. Core drama is that it motivated me to talk face-to-face with some Core devs to understand their perspective and also motivated me to start doing the work I should always have been doing to look at the actual code, read the developer discussions and make an informed decision based on facts rather than listening to (mainly non-technical) podcaster opinions.
I’m going to spend more time with Core devs because I enjoy being able to talk with them about deep technical issues, and they have great insights into the codebase that I can learn from. Like you, I think we can all just get along with each other and we don’t need the character assassinations that have been the disappointing part of this drama.

2025-10-01 04:30:07 UTC

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Had a similar experience talking with Bitcoin Core devs over drinks a couple of weeks ago. Great bunch of smart talented people, but their religious belief in fees being the ultimate spam filter is where we disagree.
There is some data that everyone should work hard to filter out because of the legal/ethical/moral risk that data poses for the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Knots attempts to filter out the non-financial data that Core refused to filter, and gives node runners options about what to filter. I’m upgrading to Knots so it will signal my disapproval of Core v30 to the network, and I will never run Core v30.
You should look at the Peter McCormack interview with Gloria Zhao to understand Gloria’s misguided perspective that Core should not try to filter anything that passes consensus rules - and that cat and wizard JPEGs are fine as long as they pay fees and are in a consensus-valid transaction. IIRC it was Gloria who rejected Luke’s PR to filter inscriptions when they started.
The OG Bitcoin view is that Bitcoin is money and anything else is an attack on Bitcoin. Embedding large amounts of arbitrary data is absolutely an attack worth defending against, but Core has refused to defend against it over the past few years and with v30 is throwing in the towel and making it even easier to embed large amounts of arbitrary data.

2025-10-01 01:01:56 UTC

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Almost - I thought that too. Then I looked at the Knots and Core transaction filter code on GitHub. Knots filters out runes, inscriptions, and some other spam that Core refuses to filter. I wasn’t pro-Knots before this drama inspired me to actually look at the code. Core could easily have accepted Luke’s PR to filter this non-monetary garbage but philosophically they don’t believe that Bitcoin should only be money - as you saw in that video with one of the Core maintainers talking about cat videos and wizard JPEGs being fine in the blockchain.

2025-09-30 22:17:33 UTC

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Run the node that aligns best with your personal values, and be fully aware of what you are choosing.
TLDR; the core issue behind the Knots vs. Core v30 debate, excluding the personal attacks, can be summarized as Knots = “Bitcoin is only money” whereas Core v30 = “The Bitcoin blockchain is free data storage, and Bitcoin is also money”.
The main consideration is whether you want your node to relay only financial transactions or also arbitrary data that will be recorded on the blockchain. Knots focuses on relaying financial transactions, filtering out as much spam as reasonably possible - but it cannot block all spam. In contrast, the new Core v30 will relay the existing spam currently encountered by the network (like older Core versions already relay) and introduces a new way for spammers - such as VC-funded startups - to exploit nodes for free data storage without paying additional miner fees to bypass node filters.
Relaying and storing arbitrary data also increases legal risks for node operators compared to channeling that data through the large miners’ choke-points (e.g. via slipstream). Those large mining companies can be held accountable for the arbitrary data they choose to include in the blockchain that nodes refused to relay, creating an incentive for them to avoid mining the most awful content.

2025-09-29 02:16:26 UTC

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Hi Daniel - this v30 drama would be a great topic to cover (again) at PubKey now that it’s heating up more. It would be great to see something like a moderated debate between Kratter & Antoine. Or better yet, Luke or Mechanic vs. Antoine.

2025-09-28 17:30:49 UTC

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For anyone non-technical reading Calles note who believes bitcoin should only be money, run Knots or keep your Core node on an old version and don’t upgrade to v30 so your node won’t help turn the Bitcoin blockchain into generic data storage.
Then ask yourself why Calle and other technically knowledgeable people want to make it easier to store generic data on the blockchain. My assumption is that the risk of future filter policies (like in Knots) getting into the dominant Core nodes scares VCs away from funding startups that want to exploit nodes as free data storage because at any moment their hack could be filtered out forcing them to pay large miners to bypass the nodes.
For anyone technical, please look at the transaction filter code for knots linked below. There’s some “cat and mouse” aspects, but most code is going to work well for a long time and won’t need “daily updates”. Core could implement similar code to combat spam. The history is that Core redefined the data carrier definition to grandfather in ordinals spam and rejected Lukes PR that would have mitigated ordinals and other Taproot exploits that permit data storage. Now they want to open node policies up further to make generic data storage easier.
https://github.com/bitcoinknots/bitcoin/blob/29.x-knots/src/policy/policy.cpp

2025-08-07 14:44:48 UTC

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2025-03-16 03:19:36 UTC

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Kevin doesn’t understand Bitcoin. Keep your Bitcoin in your own (preferably cold) wallet, not on an exchange. Exchanges have a long history of getting hacked or stealing your bitcoin because they are such larger targets. Google Mt Gox; FTX; or Bitfinex to learn more.

2024-12-16 03:00:38 UTC

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The hotstyle takeover was the highlight of the Bitcoin 2024 conference IMHO.