Node Changes to “Bloat” Bitcoin Network: Community Divided Over Developers’ New Policy
Currently, the transaction relay policy doesn’t relay some non-financial transactions despite those transactions still being mined, leading to inconsistencies on the network.
Opponents of the change warn it will lead to an increase in spam and network bloat.
Heated debate has arisen in the Bitcoin community following a June 6 statement from the Bitcoin Core development team regarding the future of the blockchain’s transaction relay policy.
Thirty-one members of the core development team signed the statement, which essentially said Bitcoin would adopt a more permissive approach to relaying transactions. The move is designed to allow larger, non-financial transactions to be relayed — potentially broadening Bitcoin’s use cases beyond acting as a digital currency, but also increasing spam on the network.
Transaction relays are a fundamental part of Bitcoin nodes: by relaying transactions between each other the nodes ensure that the blockchain is updated consistently across the network. Bitcoin’s core developers said the policy change keeps the Bitcoin node software aligned with how the network is already being used.
We believe it is better for Bitcoin node software to aim to have a realistic idea of what will end up in the next block, rather than attempting to intervene between consenting transaction creators and miners in order to discourage activity that is largely harmless at a technical level.
This is not endorsing or condoning non-financial data usage, but accepting that as a censorship-resistant system, Bitcoin can and will be used for use cases not everyone agrees on.
It follows a decision by the development team in May to remove the 80-byte OP_RETURN transaction limit, paving the way for more widespread use of the Bitcoin network for non-financial use cases.
For some time, users of Bitcoin have been finding ways around the OP_RETURN cap, leading to a situation where nodes weren’t relaying some transactions while miners were continuing to mine them. This inconsistency resulted in issues such as less reliable mempools, slower block propagation, and less accurate fee estimates.
In explaining the decision to ditch the OP_RETURN limit, core developer Greg Sanders explained, “the long-standing cap, originally a gentle signal that block space should be used sparingly for non-payment proof of publication data, has outlived its utility.”
Related: Bitcoin Core Ditches OP_RETURN Byte Cap, Stirring Debate on Network Modernisation
Bitcoin Community Divided on Relay Policy Change
Some in the Bitcoin community have criticised the core developers’ statement, suggesting it encourages spam and ‘bloat’ and marks an ideological departure from Bitcoin’s intended purpose.
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton (aka Luke Dashjr), a fellow Bitcoin core developer and the Chief Technical Officer at Bitcoin mining pool OCEAN was strongly opposed to the change, posting on Twitter:
Expecting spam to be mined is defeatism. Helping spam propagate is harmful.
He said that the change “ignores the lack of consent to spam by users/node operators, giving deference to the attackers and the malicious miners who might conspire with them.”
Dennis Porter, the CEO of Bitcoin mining advocacy group Satoshi Action Fund described the update as a “forced change” and “absolutely condoning bloat”. Porter said the change was driven by venture capitalists who don’t understand or care about the network:
Many of the VC bros I talk to can’t wait for this to be rammed through. They want to bloat bitcoin as much as possible because they don’t care about bitcoin, they only care about profit.
Related: Institutional Bitcoin ETF Holdings Plunge 23% in Q1 2025 as Price Slides
There was some lukewarm support for the move — Jameson Lopp, the co-founder of Bitcoin custody solution Casa, backed the core developers’ right to take a position on how the network should function.
Core Devs are a group saying we can’t force anyone to run code they don’t like, here is our thinking on relay policy & network health.
Lopp said that if anyone disagrees with the change they’re free to create a different version of the Bitcoin node software: “You can just do things. You can write your own Bitcoin client. Can’t code? You can hire developers to do it for you.”
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Filed under: Bitcoin - @ June 9, 2025 6:27 am