Historic Debate in Bitcoin: A Developer Attempts to Transform BTC with a Hard Fork

Bitcoin Core developer and Bitcoin Knots contributor Luke Dashjr is reportedly planning a hard fork that aims to create a “trusted multi-signature committee” to remove illegal content from the blockchain.

In private messages shared by The Rage, Dashjr appears to acknowledge that current filtering methods are not sufficient.

There has long been a debate within the Bitcoin ecosystem between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots regarding the place of non-monetary data, often referred to as “spam,” on the blockchain. The Core team proposes increasing the op_return size to move such transactions to a more secure environment, while the Knots side argues that non-monetary data should not be included in Bitcoin at all. Dashjr’s Knots client implements a mechanism to filter certain types of data before it enters the node pool.

The debate has evolved over time from preventing harmless data to more serious claims that nodes should not contain illicit data. However, experts argue that this approach is technically infeasible, as current consensus rules require all nodes to maintain a validated block.

According to leaked messages, Dashjr is suggesting a multi-signature committee as a solution. In this proposed system, a designated group of individuals can retroactively review data on the blockchain and replace sections they identify as “illegal content” with zero-knowledge proofs. This allows node operators to remove the relevant data from the blockchain while preserving the validity of the transaction.

“The only options we have right now are for BTC to die or we have to rely on someone else,” Dashjr wrote in his messages. Implementing this proposal would require a Bitcoin hard fork.

However, this approach poses a serious contradiction to Bitcoin’s core principles. Critics argue that such a committee would have the power to remove not only CSAM but also any “unwanted” data in the future, undermining Bitcoin’s censorship resistance. They also warn that node operators could face legal risks if they fail to comply with the committee’s demands.

*This is not investment advice.