From: Greg Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com>
To: Kyle Stout <kylestout85@gmail.com>
Cc: Bitcoin Development Mailing List <bitcoindev@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] [BIP Proposal] Reduced Data Temporary Softfork
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2025 19:56:13 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAAS2fgQRQWwX76o8QHjt8FoLxJiq1B-FgP+pehOL8PYhWgewbg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <7abf7055-6b85-492f-ada2-e0a517e93cf9n@googlegroups.com>
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The only consensus normative data encoding in Bitcoin is the order data
goes into hashes. The representations in memory, rpc, in the p2p network,
etc. are already different and could be made arbitrarily different without
any consensus change. Case in point: the data is now normally encrypted
on disk and in P2P. There are also proposals such as BIP 337:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0337.mediawiki none of
these things are consensus changes-- many aren't even bippable because they
don't have interoperability considerations (e.g. representations on
disk/memory).
Forget for a moment the (un)likelyhood that the concerns being discussed
are meaningfully modulated by exactly how data is represented in p2p,
memory, rpc, disk, etc.. for assumption just assume they are.
If so, the correct move would be to change those encodings rather than any
consensus rule change--- particularly because any consensus rule method
will simply be evaded, and can't provide the level of swizzling that
changing the encoding can accomplish. Encoding changes are also
substantially non-coercive: people who think they're valuable can adopt
them and leave other people alone.
Good news for everyone except those who consider coercing others to be a
terminal goal.
On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 6:35 PM Kyle Stout <kylestout85@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dathon,
>
> > if Bitcoin provides an officially supported method of storing arbitrary
> data (i.e., OP_RETURN), and the capacity of that method is large enough to
> store hazardous content in a contiguous format (an increase to 100kB is
> currently underway as Bitcoin Core 30 gains adoption), then one does not
> need to misinterpret the data in order to view the content.
>
> This seems to be the crux of your argument. I believe it is misleading and
> technically unsound. It's technical theater that creates a distinction
> without any meaningful difference.
>
> First, Bitcoin has no concept of a file viewer. To interpret *any*
> embedded data other to validate it against Bitcoin's rules, you must use a
> third party tool. Practically speaking, the differences are negligible in
> terms of technical difficulty, as humorously demonstrated here:
> https://x.com/rot13maxi/status/1963318690759192622 . Contiguous or not,
> you're file carving.
>
> Second, by definition, you're misinterpreting the data vis-a-vis Bitcoin
> since it has no native concept of 'image', 'video', etc. Arbitrary bytes
> are meaningless. The purpose of having OP_RETURN as a standard output is to
> protect the UTXO set from being abused. It isn't some kind of 'blessing' to
> store files. That's absurd. As you admit, it's impossible to stop people
> from writing arbitrary bytes to the blockchain, so this is damage
> mitigation, not an invitation.
>
> Third, contiguity is not a legally meaningful predicate. "Your honor, we
> tried to limit the contiguous bytes!" is simply not going to fly. The bytes
> exist either way, and they must be interpreted by third party software
> either way. If anything, this path is going to represent a voluntary
> self-policing that will result in more culpability. Right now, arbitrary
> bytes don't mean anything in Bitcoin. If it's valid, it's valid. Nodes
> relay opaque protocol data. If you insist on only accepting 'approved'
> arbitrary bytes, you're opening the door to a knowledge/intent accusation.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kyle
>
>
>
> On Monday, October 27, 2025 at 1:36:33 AM UTC-4 dath...@proton.me wrote:
>
>> Peter -
>>
>> Thank you for demonstrating what non-contiguous data looks like.
>>
>> I trust you when you say that you can parse the BIP's contents from this
>> transaction, but all it looks like to me (and the Bitcoin network) is a
>> UTXO broken into 31 pieces then (mostly) re-consolidated into a 0-length
>> OP_RETURN, sending all ~100 USD in fees to the miner.
>>
>> Since legally hazardous content can be generated from any input data,
>> including your 30-input consolidation transaction (as long as the correct
>> third-party program is used), it would not make sense to hold node
>> operators legally responsible for storing and distributing such input data.
>>
>> However, if Bitcoin provides an officially supported method of storing
>> arbitrary data (i.e., OP_RETURN), and the capacity of that method is large
>> enough to store hazardous content in a contiguous format (an increase to
>> 100kB is currently underway as Bitcoin Core 30 gains adoption), then one
>> does not need to misinterpret the data in order to view the content. In
>> that case, node operators could conceivably be held responsible for
>> possession and distribution.
>>
>> Since arbitrary data storage does nothing to benefit Bitcoin as
>> permissionless money, there is no good reason to force this additional
>> legal risk on node operators, who already face enough challenges as it is.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Dathon
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, October 26th, 2025 at 4:43 PM, Peter Todd <pe...@petertodd.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > On Sat, Oct 25, 2025 at 08:43:11PM +0000, dathonohm via Bitcoin
>> Development Mailing List wrote:
>> >
>> > > Hi list -
>> > >
>> > > Due to Bitcoin Core v30 gaining in popularity, it has become
>> necessary to move forward on luke-jr's ML proposal to temporarily limit
>> arbitrary data at the consensus level, which so far has 3 weeks with no
>> objections:
>> > >
>> > > https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/2017
>> >
>> >
>> > Transaction
>> 8e2ee13d2a19951c2777bb3a54f0cb69a2f76dae8baa954cd86149ed1138cb6c
>> > contains the full text of this BIP as of writing(1), while
>> simultaneously being
>> > compliant with that BIP.
>> >
>> > Clearly, this approach is ineffective.
>> >
>> > 1)
>> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/3c718237072c107ced8c3531a487354fbdae55df/bip-%3F%3F%3F%3F.mediawiki
>> >
>> > --
>> > https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
>> >
>> > --
>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Bitcoin Development Mailing List" group.
>> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> an email to bitcoindev+...@googlegroups.com.
>> > To view this discussion visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcoindev/aP6gYSnte7J86g0p%40petertodd.org.
>>
>>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-10-27 19:58 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 30+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-10-25 20:43 dathonohm via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-10-26 20:47 ` Jameson Lopp
2025-10-27 4:22 ` dathonohm via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-10-27 12:14 ` Jameson Lopp
2025-10-27 16:35 ` TheWrlck
2025-10-26 22:27 ` Peter Todd
2025-10-27 3:41 ` Jal Toorey
2025-10-27 17:27 ` Max
2025-10-27 4:08 ` dathonohm via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-10-27 18:29 ` Kyle Stout
2025-10-27 19:56 ` Greg Maxwell [this message]
2025-10-28 5:13 ` dathonohm via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-10-30 0:31 ` Antoine Riard
2025-10-30 2:43 ` Erik Aronesty
2025-11-08 0:51 ` dathonohm via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-11-08 3:43 ` Edil Guimarães de Medeiros
2025-11-08 9:30 ` 'Bitcoin Eagle' via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-11-08 15:38 ` Greg Maxwell
2025-11-08 16:40 ` Daniel Buchner
2025-11-08 17:55 ` Chris Riley
2025-11-08 21:02 ` dathonohm via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-11-08 21:39 ` Greg Maxwell
2025-11-09 20:07 ` dathonohm via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-11-11 7:43 ` 'Bitcoin Eagle' via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2025-11-11 16:23 ` Greg Maxwell
2025-11-09 1:21 ` Murch
2025-11-09 20:56 ` onyxcoyote
2025-11-09 21:34 ` Peter Todd
2025-11-10 19:46 ` Lucas Barbosa
2025-10-28 9:16 ` /dev /fd0
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