Replying to Avatar Dathon Ohm

Here is an updated version of my email to the bitcoindev ML, which fixes a typo:

Hi list -

I was hoping to post this on the PR, but it's still locked so I will post it here. I don't really have any other methods of addressing the public as my X account has also been suspended due to trolls reporting it. I did create a Nostr account, but Nostr doesn't seem to have many users.

There is a wild misconception floating around that the BIP I am proposing is a "legal threat from Ocean Mining". This could not be further from the truth, and I suspect this nonsense is being pushed by people who would love to see Bitcoin become a data storage service.

I would like to take this opportunity to correct the record.

Though I am in direct communication with some Ocean employees (and the BIP was originally drafted by one of them), I am not affiliated with Ocean in any way. I am just a Bitcoin dev who is concerned about the implications of Core 30 having been released and gaining adoption.

The references to "legal risks" in the BIP are not "threats". They are warnings about a major legal and moral threat that has been created by Bitcoin Core 30's officially designating Bitcoin as a storage service for files up to 100kB. Specifically, there is an unknown level of risk that node operators could be classified as sex offenders (or some other type of criminals depending on the content) for possessing and distributing toxic content.

This threat does not come from me, or from Ocean, but rather from Core 30 and its effect on node operators themselves, their consciences, and the communities in which they live. Core 30 forces every single node operator, from the moment toxic content is posted to the blockchain until the end of time, to be complicit in sexual (or other) crimes via possession and distribution of illegal data.

So now that Core 30 is gaining adoption, it's very likely that, given the choice of whether to participate in Bitcoin or not, most normal people will simply choose not to participate, and then Bitcoin becomes just another BSV. If Core had just left the OP_RETURN limit where it was, no significant legal threat would exist, and no consensus changes would be urgently needed.

I am not saying "I'm going to sue you if you don't support the fork". That is ridiculous.

I am saying "you probably want to support this fork if aiding and abetting sex offenders (and potentially being one yourself) does not appeal to you, and you may not want to run a node once Core 30's new default policies become the standard (which is about to happen)."

Most Bitcoiners I know signed up for permissionless money, and believe strongly in the freedom to transact, even for people who do things we don't like, since the vision of a maximally neutral monetary standard is why we're all here in the first place. Because Bitcoin's purpose is to be permissionless money, simply storing and forwarding a record of an "illegal" purchase is acceptable to most node operators, because that is the price of entry for trustless, digital money.

Storing and forwarding actual illegal content, in the clear, however, is not a problem Bitcoin was ever intended to solve, nor something in which Bitcoin node operators are interested in participating. Indeed, permissionless censorship-resistant data storage is probably not a sustainable idea, without some kind of periodic payment to the person tasked with storing the data.

In any case, forcing all Bitcoin node operators to knowingly commit crimes totally unrelated to the operation of Bitcoin as permissionless money, for the rest of eternity, is obviously a foolish idea and will quickly lead to node centralization and irrelevance if we do not act. Yet this heavy-handed and completely unnecessary imposition is precisely what Core 30 achieves, unless it is enthusiastically opposed by the community. Even in the best case, Core 30's new default policies set a terrible precedent that must be immediately reversed.

Since almost all forms of illegal data can be avoided by limiting data fields to 256 bytes, BIP-444 seems like a no-brainer to me, because it neatly dodges the dark fate that awaits us down the data storage path.

Having engaged many principled Bitcoiners on this topic for a long time, I can confidently say that Bitcoiners overwhelmingly support keeping Bitcoin as permissionless money, and overwhelmingly oppose Bitcoin's block space being used for data storage. Limiting large data storage in consensus, as BIP-444 does, is the easiest way I can see to give everyone what they want.

So even if BIP-444 does not activate in its exact current form, I am dedicating myself to helping Bitcoin re-affirm its commitment to permissionless money while re-affirming its opposition to data storage. I am incorporating all feedback I am hearing (which is a lot!) into the next draft of the BIP.

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughtful and respectful engagement on this matter critically important to the future of Bitcoin. Together we will find the way forward.

Sincerely,

Dathon

I guess this is the guy who wrote that bip. Don't just read one side - one side is claiming there was a legal threat. I haven't been able find it, and its looking like that was an example of influencers misleading people.

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That's not a threat, though. That's what's being misrepresented. Its just a fact.

Right. But you know how people can be when there are precisely 2 sides of an issue.

I remember when I learned Coke and Pepsi joined together to do the “Coke vs Pepsi” ad campaign to delude everyone into thinking there are only 2 soda options that exist. Pretty much killed the competition because when there are 2 options, everyone takes a side. Same with a 2 party system.

We need more solutions to this problem.

Yeah, something like no client having more than around 20% seems like a healthy start. And the spam might end up helping too, if the real potential for legal troubles causes people to filter more aggressively, which is still doable on core 30. There's still solutions. Maybe an AI watching incoming data and dynamically changing filter settings to block pictures. Idk just an idea.

no

Great attitude: thinking of alt solutions. I know one issue would be inevitable centralization of filtering data. Keeping bitcoin decentralized should be a fundamental tenant to any changes.

Letting AI come close to non fungible data will be the end of Bitcoin.

I know we have the meme, but then even the most anti-fragile system can only take it so far.

Humans will be the end of bitcoin. AIs are just machines.

thinking about the history here lol

after much debate, Bitcoin decided to keep blocks small and start scaling using its limited scripting instead.

this way made it much easier to also use those scripts to store arbitrary data.

putting that data in op_return keeps it out of the UTXO set. core maintains the network is agnostic about what is being stored.

and there's a financial incentive, that data storage has a dollar value.

and otoh

should we do whatever we can to whackamole all Objectional Content and even go so far to create a process where we can rollback any that gets onto the chain?

These are stupid options 😂

I don't think they're the only options. Am I right in thinking that the objectionable content put in op_return is prunable? Eventually most nodes will have to be pruned anyways. Maybe the other option is making lightning nodes work with pruned nodes and just being more okay with pruning.

Pruning isn't by field type. Pruning means keeping the UTXO set and a certain count of blocks or space dedicated to storing blocks. Even pruned you are storing that chain content until it ages out of your block storage.

In order to validate you need to be able to hash the entire block. Change any field and the hash changes. The hash from last block is included in the next block so you can't tell if it is valid unless you have the entire block before that which you can't tell if it is valid unless you have the entire block before that, and so on forever back to the Genesis block.

Pruning works by validating the entire chain then discarding and trusting your own prior work.

All you need is the hash.

I thought the point of the op_return increase was to minimize the utxo set.

IMO it was never realistic for every block to keep the whole chain. What about 300 years in the future? To assume storage will continue getting cheaper forever is silly. Maybe, maybe not. Its just not an assumption that should ever have passed inspection.

A hash without any context is just a random 256 byte string. Don't have the block? You have no way to know if that is the correct hash or some random numbers I made up. At that level of trust you are wasting your time running a node at all.

The UTXO set is not the entire chain. The UTXO set is the location of all spendable coins, plus some spam in unfortunate block fields that we can't tell from spendable coins. A pruned node keeps the entire UTXO set plus its limited chain.

If i was a banking elite i would sabotage any atempt that bitcoin has at scaling in a private sovereign way. Be that larger blocks or drivetrains using opreturn. Then i would make sure all the ppl use custodians, make bitcoin digital gold and ensure a place for myself as the banker of tm.

We cant just have freedom, we are always going to have to continuously fight for it?

always has been

Those who can buy bitcoin main chain now without kyc and self custody probably can but the late majority pleb will be rugged and rehypothicated just like the gold days

Yep. Always have to fight. Always have to wear personae and play parts, go with the flow, and eat the less fortunate. Such wretched world...

I dunno what people’s intentions are, of course.

I would have preferred this be a more technical than emotional discussion among bitcoiners so that a non technical person like me could:

1. Learn something useful and

2. Make an informed decision.

Instead, I am more confused.

I think Jimmy Song and Tone tried to fill this void, and it helped a bit, but the personal attacks are creating a lot of noise.

Filtering the noise from people who prefer to throw insults instead of discussing real stuff is really quite a job in this debate. The best we can do is live by, "don't trust - verify." That's why I was instantly suspicious of the allegation of legal threats that I started seeing yesterday.

Thank you for posting this. I don't know my ass from my elbow in this space but yesterday the conversation seemed to dramatically shift in ways I didn't fully understand.

Luke thinks that NOT going along with his fork is sanctioning illegal data.

He didn't say HE would pursue legal action, he just said it was a legal threat.

Yes, that was my prior understanding of this debate. So when it was suddenly being framed as he's threatening legal action it felt weird. Seems like some folks are not debating in good faith.

Luke is an authoritarian and he always has been.

It is a threat. just to speak publicly about it is an implied threat.

There's always risks I suppose. But increasing the amount of non-money data on the block chain does seem to increase that risk, logically. I'm not sure what the benefits of doing that are?

And it seems weird that speaking of risk is framed as an implied threat. I speak of risks all the time and don't mean any threat by them, it's just an important part of risk mitigation. 🤷‍♀️

When someone is a publicly known figure, significant in a particular community, and they start jumping up and down and screaming fire about legal risks,

they make it MUCH more credible for an authority to bring legal action of that variety against the space in general.

and like most people who think they know better than everyone else,

I also dont think that leveraging the threat of legal force to make other people comply with How Things Should Be is beneath him.

I don't know enough about him to call him an authoritarian. I was annoyed with him saying that disobedience is a sin, then annoyed again when another catholic said the same, but incorrect theology doesn't make a person authoritarian in other categories. I still haven't seen enough to retract the standard benefit of the doubt.

I dont think you're looking very hard

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The more you learn the less you will like.

He believes that law is morality, so yes an authoritarian.

He isn't a Catholic he is some weird tiny offshoot of Catholicism.

I really hope this "committee that can roll back the chain" shit breaks the spell so I stop being the only person who sees that core and knots are both attacking bitcoin.

Where did he say he wants a committee that can roll it back?