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A small change to OP_RETURN could have stopped a decade of blockspace abuse. Instead, Core rejected it. Today, the problem still festers —…Continue reading on Coinmonks »A small change to OP_RETURN could have stopped a decade of blockspace abuse. Instead, Core rejected it. Today, the problem still festers —…Continue reading on Coinmonks »

The Bitcoin Core Change That Should Never Have Been Rejected

Author: Medium

Source: Medium

2025/10/07 14:21

CORE$0.1161+1.84%

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A small change to OP_RETURN could have stopped a decade of blockspace abuse. Instead, Core rejected it. Today, the problem still festers — and Knots is the better client to run.

Michael P. Di Fulvio

5 min read

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In Bitcoin, the most consequential decisions often hide in the quiet corners of GitHub. They aren’t the big, dramatic fights that make headlines. They’re the small pull requests — the one-liners that set the tone for how the protocol is actually used. One of those moments happened in 2014, when Core developers debated how much arbitrary data should be allowed in OP_RETURN.

A fix was proposed: restrict the data carrier size. Define its meaning clearly. Make it unambiguous that Bitcoin is for money, not for storage. That proposal was rejected.

Ten years later, we’re still paying for that mistake.

Today, PR #29187 reintroduces the same concept: limiting Bitcoin’s data carrier to stop abuse. The irony? What was dismissed in 2014 as “too restrictive” is now framed as a necessary defense against inscriptions clogging the chain. It should have been merged back then.

What the Data Carrier Was Supposed to Be

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