Removing OP_return limits seems like a huge mistake

[stwenhao]

I'm 99% sure I could reboot v1 and v2, want to see me do it or nah?

It doesn't matter, because a lot of people don't have clients for v1 and v2. And also, rules for v1 and v2 were different than for v3, so even if someone would start with v3 software, and try to downgrade it, then it would require some effort (for example by changing 0x1d00ffff into a different target, disabling soft-forks like Taproot and Segwit, and bringing back some really old rules, like 0.01 coin as a default transaction fee; not to mention bringing back free transactions).

Also, do you really want to bring back some really old Bitcoin node, which could be attacked in a lot of ways? Because since 2011 or 2012, through many years, many bugs were discovered and fixed. And if you bring back the original testnet client for v1 or v2, then it could be attacked in many ways, just by those, who will use the current client, and apply some fixes on top of that, just to connect with the old network.

How hard do you want me to try to go with this test?

Old testnets like v1 and v2 are oficially abandoned, so it will be very similar, as if you would release your own token. As I said before: it is P2P world. If you want to bring back to life some old networks, then you can do that. But: if nobody else will do that, then you will be the only developer, keeping those things alive. And then, will you have enough incentive to attack your own network, and harm your own users, who will try to trade, when you list these coins?

If it fails, who cares, it's testnet!

Exactly. If you want to test some edge cases, then why not. But if you will connect v1 or v2 test coins with real BTCs, then you will just harm your own users.

Edit: By the way: If you want to bring back all official testnets, then what about Satoshi's prenet, with 20-bit difficulty blocks, where OP_CODESEPARATOR was in use, where the coinbase amount was set to 10000 units, whatever it means (I guess 100.00 coins), and with difficulty measured in leading zero bits?

Related topic about prenet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5355610.0

So, do you want to bring back to live Satoshi's test network, with 000006b15d1327d67e971d1de9116bd60a3a01556c91b6ebaa416ebc0cfaa646 as the Genesis Block?

[BayAreaCoins]

then you will just harm your own users.

People are responsible for their choices.  Especially when it comes with warnings and blah blah blah, you know.  

This is a great thing to learn in testnet, even the hard way, and maybe especially.

It shows the importance of maintaining tech vs technical problems vs ideological problems.  Real shit.

(Plus, exchanges are famous for giving a fuck about their users right?! har har)

Edit: By the way: If you want to bring back all official testnets, then what about Satoshi's prenet, with 20-bit difficulty blocks, where OP_CODESEPARATOR was in use, where the coinbase amount was set to 10000 units, whatever it means (I guess 100.00 coins), and with difficulty measured in leading zero bits?

Related topic about prenet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5355610.0

So, do you want to bring back to live Satoshi's test network, with 000006b15d1327d67e971d1de9116bd60a3a01556c91b6ebaa416ebc0cfaa646 as the Genesis Block?

I really like you! haha, but we have 42 coin, I hate low number coins... People want full numbers...  That's why I messed with DOGE early on.

I'll ask for fun and let you know.  It's a good proposal.

I'm a fan of "brands", but I see what you are doing and respect it.

I do also worry that it wasn't a public network.  Regardless, pretty important stuff.  I'll think/talk further on it in the morning.

I'll get back to you tomorrow.

[stwenhao]

I hate low number coins... People want full numbers...

So, you don't want a network with 100.00 coinbase reward, instead of 50.00000000? There were blocks with 15 minutes delay, instead of 10, there were difficulty adjustments every month (30 days), instead of every two weeks, and halvings every 100,000 blocks (instead of every 210,000), and the whole supply was 20 millions, instead of 21.

Which means, that if you want to bring back the original network, then you should probably start with Satoshi's code, and integrate it into today's systems somehow.

And of course, there will be many inconvenient things, for example the network's difficulty would only raise or drop by powers of two, because Satoshi's client just counted zero bits, instead of checking, if the hash of the block is lower than some number. Not to mention bugs like Value Overflow Incident, spending things with OP_TRUE OP_RETURN, and a lot of other issues.

and being the person monopolizing it makes for a pretty easy push down a hill

It will be just another altcoin, from the very beginning, if you enable trading from day one.

[BayAreaCoins]

I hate low number coins... People want full numbers...

So, you don't want a network with 100.00 coinbase reward, instead of 50.00000000? There were blocks with 15 minutes delay, instead of 10, there were difficulty adjustments every month (30 days), instead of every two weeks, and halvings every 100,000 blocks (instead of every 210,000), and the whole supply was 20 millions, instead of 21.

Which means, that if you want to bring back the original network, then you should probably start with Satoshi's code, and integrate it into today's systems somehow.

And of course, there will be many inconvenient things, for example the network's difficulty would only raise or drop by powers of two, because Satoshi's client just counted zero bits, instead of checking, if the hash of the block is lower than some number. Not to mention bugs like Value Overflow Incident, spending things with OP_TRUE OP_RETURN, and a lot of other issues.

and being the person monopolizing it makes for a pretty easy push down a hill

It will be just another altcoin, from the very beginning, if you enable trading from day one.

It likely gets dangerously close to "creating my own coin" for my own tastes.  Hanging on to a coattail is way easier & I'm kinda lazy with this many years under my belt tbh.

The low coin thing is just a preference... It could be desirable for high-value items, like art.  Do you want a 1/100 or a 1/21000000 as a collector of a dead guy?  I'm not sure.

Both high and low numbers make things feel important and I wouldn't pretend to know the answer at this point with this type of stuff.  It requires testing.  (which I'm kinda doing by supporting 42 coin, which trades for >1 BTC occasionally, this is a "weird" behavior.)

Markets are not about what "I" want either, god, life would be much easier if they were!

It will be just another altcoin, from the very beginning, if you enable trading from day one.

Interesting point of view.

Altcoin or not,  Testnet v4 is and was an indicator/proof of OP_return's workaround and such.  

[mikeywith]

The economic incentives behind mining on testnet and mainnet are fundamentally different

Yes, but when testnets are no longer worthless, and they get some value, then they start competing with altcoins, rather than testnets. And in that case, if you have a long chain, where coins are traded at 100 satoshis per test coin (at the time of writing in testnet3), then if you can still see, that people are transacting, and moving whole coins without any problems, you can assume, that if mainnet in the future will be worth more, than testnets are worth today, then the network will still be in use.

BTC mainnet can't be meaningfully compared to testnet -- not just because the latter is a testnet, but because the two systems differ in fundamental and structural ways. In fact, Bitcoin isn't even directly comparable to altcoins either, but that's another topic.

Here are a few reasons why testnet behaves so differently from mainnet:

1. Lack of real economic incentives:
Testnet coins are essentially almost free. You can find people on this very board offering to donate thousands of them. Nobody does that with real BTC. There's no real risk or cost involved in using testnet coins. On mainnet, every transaction carries a financial cost, which fundamentally changes how people behave, how fees are prioritized, and how valuable block space is perceived.

2. different fee market dynamics:
On testnet, people routinely create massive or inefficient transactions and spam the network without any concern for fees. On mainnet, users actively optimize for fee efficiency. The cost of inclusion in a block matters, which creates a real fee market. That alone creates vastly different network behavior.

3. mining incentives are not the same:
Testnet blocks are mined at artificially low difficulty. It's not uncommon for someone with a single CPU to outmine an ASIC farm, like what we saw in testnet4. This has gone on for months with little concern because there is nothing valuable at stake. In contrast, mainnet miners are in constant competition for rewards, which shapes everything from block frequency to what kind of transactions make it into a block.

4. artificial usage patterns:
Most testnet activity is scripted, automated, or intentionally constructed to test edge cases. It's not representative of real-world usage where businesses, wallets, and exchanges operate under economic pressure. The behavior on testnet has no bearing on how people behave when money is on the line.

5. value dictates everything:
The amount of money at stake fundamentally shapes user behavior. BTC is a unique ecosystem where every layer is built with long-term value in mind. The testnet doesn't simulate that -- it can't.

In fact, I think the number of on-chain BTC transactions will decline as we move into the future. We've already seen days in 2018 with more confirmed transactions than some recent days. That suggests Bitcoin isn't heading toward mass adoption in the way most people imagine. It will likely evolve into a final settlement layer -- fewer transactions, but each representing a significant value transfer.

It doesn't matter if we increase the block size or not. People will naturally spend BTC less frequently over time. So all the high-volume, high-activity behavior seen on testnet probably won't ever apply to BTC -- if anything, the opposite is more likely in my honest opinion, and I will be willing to change my mind the moment I see a real BTC faucet.

[stwenhao]

Nobody does that with real BTC.

Thousands of BTCs flied through brainwallets and other kinds of puzzles or weak keys.

There's no real risk or cost involved in using testnet coins.

There is a cost: someone has to mine test coins, and then, that person is often not willing to just give away any bigger amount, because it can be easily calculated, what was the cost to produce new test coins in the first place. Even when test coins were considered worthless, some people required some kind of collateral, before giving away bigger amounts, because of the cost of testnet mining.

And even if you assume, that blocks can be CPU-mined, then the cost is lower, but the risk is higher: the risk of reorging your CPU-mined block increased by quite huge factor, since people learned, how blocks with fake timestamps are made (and now, we are constantly two hours in the future, in all testnets with permissionless mining).

[BayAreaCoins]

1. Lack of real economic incentives:

https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet3

https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet4

Testnet fits with Bitcoin like a glove.

In the future, this will become easier as people do "Wrapped" Testnet directly on the Bitcoin blockchain, and it will be traded on DeFi exchanges.  

OP_Return being removed will make this "easier".

Bitcoin miners are going to get their little taste from activity, and as long as people are paid off, who cares?  Feels pretty real to me. Small, but real. Remember, forest fires start with a tiny spark.  Fun fact:  Testnet today is "worth" more than Bitcoin was when Testnet v1 was released.

2. different fee market dynamics:

If you want to test how much income stupid fees actually generate vs big fat block rewards, give it a shot.  There are plenty of fees in v4 Testnet because it is fastest to submit a block with no transactions.



Feel free to take them, but you'll be doing it for sport. (I pool mine them for fun & to help the network move around.)

20 minute block times in Testnet too, lol!  Remember, the same rule that *someone* is "abusing", causing the network to stop moving... was intended to keep the network moving!.  Someone's imagination turned out wrong.  Not pointing any fingers, but some of you smart people are kinda dipshits in Science Fairs.  I loveeeeee Science Fairs.  

4. artificial usage patterns:

Again, who cares?  Mine the fees if you feel that strongly about it.

5. value dictates everything:

It certainly does not.  However, value helps outline flaws, which is a fundamental part of Testnet for at least some people, apparently.


Starting to feel a bit off topic.  I feel like the forum needs a Testnet section at this point.

[gmaxwell]

1. Lack of real economic incentives:

https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet3

60 Satoshi per tn3 offered for <300 coins,  that's more of a joke than actual economic activity.

I feel like the forum needs a Testnet section at this point.

The altcoin subforum awaits your loving embrace.

[BayAreaCoins]

60 Satoshi per tn3 offered for <300 coins,  that's more of a joke than actual economic activity.

It is a joke.  I absolutely agree. It's fucking Testnet.      It's "supposed" to be worthless.  I think this keeps expectations managed, while paying tribute to Satoshi and realizing that Bitcoin is degenerates with the mindset "I'll do whatever I want, fuck _____."  It's not really a bad thing IMO, unless you want to be annoyed by "them".

V3 went from almost 300 to 14 the other day with the help of Yala.org going to mainnet and a 2012 miner... which I assume is the year v3 dropped(?)

https://mempool.space/testnet/address/mp6iXwDfTmFLsa16SuapcFCCSm1pTcXfFZ

People are moving more Testnet 3 coins around than most faucets could ever dream of... that was my goal and I've achieved it.

The altcoin subforum awaits your loving embrace.

Another spot we agreed on and I'm happy to continue to grace my presence there.  

However, I feel Testnet is a bit more intimate with Bitcoin than "Altcoins"... that's really up to yall, my opinion makes zero fucks (again, totally agree, 3/3).

Our noise will be on the Blockchain, unlike many fruitcakes you deal with these days. <3

[headingnorth]

Bitcoin works by consensus. Without consensus, the proposal should not go through.

Without consensus bitcoin is no longer decentralized. Bitcoin is then controlled and dictated by a
handful of devs no different than any shitcoin, no better than a CBDC. Bitcoin is no longer bitcoin.
Because it sets a precedent that kills the consensus mechanism, and declares that from now on
every future BIP will be determined by a small group of decision makers. The nodes have no say in the matter.

Regardless of the merits of the proposal, without consensus the proposal to remove op-return
should not go through. If it does, bitcoin core should be abandoned immediately by all the nodes IMO.
  

[nutildah]

Bitcoin works by consensus. Without consensus, the proposal should not go through.

Without consensus bitcoin is no longer decentralized. Bitcoin is then controlled and dictated by a
handful of devs no different than any shitcoin, no better than a CBDC. Bitcoin is no longer bitcoin.

This is true, but its a two way street. Who determines what "consensus" actually entails? Ideally it should include a thorough weighing of pros and cons of any suggested change by a robust group of individuals who are knowledgeable enough to formulate a meaningful opinion on the subject, whatever it may be.

So what I'm saying is that, even if the proposal is declined and the outcome is favorable to you personally, there will still be people claiming the consensus mechanism in Core is "broken."

Regardless, I personally don't think the change will go through due to the very thing you are talking about: lack of consensus. Besides, there are obviously workarounds being employed as we speak, so such a change isn't completely necessary, IMHO.

[headingnorth]

Bitcoin works by consensus. Without consensus, the proposal should not go through.

Without consensus bitcoin is no longer decentralized. Bitcoin is then controlled and dictated by a
handful of devs no different than any shitcoin, no better than a CBDC. Bitcoin is no longer bitcoin.

This is true, but its a two way street. Who determines what "consensus" actually entails? Ideally it should include a thorough
weighing of pros and cons of any suggested change by a robust group of individuals who are knowledgeable enough to formulate
a meaningful opinion on the subject, whatever it may be.

I believe the community and the nodes determine that. I'm not exactly sure how the process works but I think we can all agree
there is no clear consensus for this latest proposal. Perhaps some kind of voting mechanism could be implemented for future BIPs,
or at least a survey or polling to help provide a more clear picture of community sentiment.

So what I'm saying is that, even if the proposal is declined and the outcome is favorable to you personally,
there will still be people claiming the consensus mechanism in Core is "broken."

Of course there can never be 100% support for any proposal and it's not reasonable to expect 100% agreement for anything,
but there has to be a clear consensus. In the case of the op_return debate the solution is very simple. Let the nodes decide not the devs:
You do that by simply leaving the op-return limit in place. The limit can be raised or removed by the node, and the nodes should
decide how they want to run their node not the devs.

I don't know why the hell this is even a debate when the current solution is already in place and functioning well. If it ain't broke don't fix it!
 
If a node operator believes bitcoin should be a generic database capable of doing a million different things outside the scope of its
intended purpose as a monetary network they can simply raise the data limit on their node. But if you believe bitcoin is a monetary network, period,
then simply leave the limit in place. That's how it currently works and there is no valid reason to change it.
Having the choice is the compromise (between bitcoiners and shitcoiners). If it were up to me the op-return limit would be hardcoded
to 42K or 80K with no option to change it at all. But it isn't up to me. Having the option to raise the limit is the compromise.

Bitcoin is about having choices, not being told by an unknown shadowy "robust group of individuals" that decides what is good for us.
It is insulting and condescending.

[d5000]

Bitcoin works by consensus. Without consensus, the proposal should not go through.

Bitcoin Core isn't necessarily based on perfect consensus. It's an implementation, and even if it's the reference implementation, it is not the only one. That's the beauty of open source software and open protocols.

I don't know how much you have read about the proposal (your last sentence in that post about nodes which should leave Core makes me think that you, in reality, understand the situation well, but the rest of the post and also the next post goes into another direction ...), but it is not a protocol change we're talking about here, but a change of default values and the removal of a feature for nodes.

If this proposal goes through, everybody is free to:

1) Fork Bitcoin Core, change the default values for OP_RETURN back, and continue to maintain the -datacarrier feature (which allows to limit the size of data put in OP_RETURN outputs, but not the data stuffed into fake public keys!).

2) Use another Bitcoin implementation, for example Luke-jr's Bitcoin Knots. That's what many critics of this PR are doing, and this is completely okay!

This is why this assumption is simply wrong:

Without consensus bitcoin is no longer decentralized. Bitcoin is then controlled and dictated by a
handful of devs no different than any shitcoin, no better than a CBDC. [...]The nodes have no say in the matter.

I highlighted the part of the nodes because this is the important part. The truth is that the devs have no power to impose a change. The nodes can simply decide to use the patched/forked version and even decide to use completely different defaults for the standardness values.

Even if it was a protocol change, then the nodes could still decide the same way, albeit with the risk of forking the chain. And the economic majority would decide which fork becomes the consensus.

This is why I said the power of Core devs is drastically overrated by some. Core deves have some social power as "influencers" in the Bitcoin community, but not power at all to impose technical changes. It's more: the incentives work here in favour of listening to the community. If they don't, then they risk to lose the leadership to another implementation, be it Knots or whatever.

I still think for these reasons there's way, way too much drama around that PR.

[mikeywith]

If this proposal goes through, everybody is free to:

1) Fork Bitcoin Core, change the default values for OP_RETURN back, and continue to maintain the -datacarrier feature (which allows to limit the size of data put in OP_RETURN outputs, but not the data stuffed into fake public keys!).

2) Use another Bitcoin implementation, for example Luke-jr's Bitcoin Knots. That's what many critics of this PR are doing, and this is completely okay!

Honestly, I'm not sure how well he understands how Bitcoin actually works -- though to be fair, Bitcoin itself is pretty confusing. Take the statement "everybody is free to fork" for example. While technically true, it overlooks a critical reality: not everyone has equal power in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

People often misunderstand Bitcoin's consensus model by comparing it to democratic systems, like elections, where one person equals one vote. But Bitcoin doesn't work that way. In reality, it's more like a lobbying system -- those with the most influence can effectively dictate the outcome, regardless of what the majority of users or even nodes want.

Satoshi's famous quote, "1 CPU = 1 vote," reflects a vision where consensus is tied to computing power. But today, owning some BTC or running a full node doesn't give you meaningful control. If core developers, large mining pools, and major exchanges agree on a new direction, they can effectively drag the rest of the network with them -- even if thousands of smaller nodes disagree.

It may sound harsh, but let's consider a realistic scenario:

Suppose the largest mining pools, major exchanges, and data aggregators like CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko all back a hard fork.

They brand it as "Bitcoin", list it as BTC, and your Coinbase or Binance account reflects that version.

Even if only 50 nodes are running the new fork, if it has the economic momentum, longer chain, and industry support -- that becomes the de facto Bitcoin.

In the end, the Bitcoin that most of the world recognizes and uses isn't defined by ideological purity or raw node count -- it's defined by who controls the economic infrastructure.

People need to face the harsh truth. Saying things like "go write your own code" or "run your own node with your own rules" is like telling someone to "go start your own country" -- it just doesn't work that way. Your node isn't remotely as important as Foundry's. Core devs don't wait for the community to signal support -- they wait for mining pools to show interest in a protocol change. Have you ever seen Core devs posting here asking if we want to implement a new change? Did anyone ask you, or anyone else here, when they launched Taproot? Nobody did. They kept lobbying and pursuing mining pools, and once the majority of large pools opted in, Taproot became reality -- regardless of what the tens of thousands of other nodes had to say.

Obviously, Taproot was a soft fork and was adopted smoothly, but the principle remains: in Bitcoin, not all participants are equally important. Consensus isn't just a matter of majority -- it's a matter of which majority.

The truth is that the devs have no power to impose a change

That's also questionable. A great example is the UASF event, which was essentially a standoff between Core devs and every other major power.

In that case, Core devs successfully rallied the support of the wider community -- the "crowd" , and managed to outmaneuver the large mining pools. This showed that when the community and devs are aligned, they can exert real influence over consensus decisions.

However, if Core devs and miners come together and push a change in the same direction, the community's collective voice becomes mostly irrelevant, I think of the community as the stick that decision-makers use to beat each other when they disagree. But when those decision-makers are on the same page, the community is effectively invisible, powerless, and practically nonexistent in the process.

[nutildah]

Bitcoin is about having choices, not being told by an unknown shadowy "robust group of individuals" that decides what is good for us.
It is insulting and condescending.

I outlined the best possible scenario! The reality is the group of people making the decisions is quite small. Here's the thing though: if they make "bad" decisions, people will move away from the network. So the Core maintainers are incentivized to make good decisions that are supported by more miners & community than not. Its not "insulting and condescending" so much as the way things have always been.

[d5000]

Take the statement "everybody is free to fork" for example. While technically true, it overlooks a critical reality: not everyone has equal power in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

This is of course true. What I meant however was that the Core team alone can't drive anyone in a certain direction. Thus the comparison with a CBDC @headingnorth brought up is completely inappropiate.

The big three powers can be considered: (protocol) developers, miners and economic nodes (those accepting or holding Bitcoin and running full nodes).

In my interpretation the Core team is the entity with the least amount of technical power, i.e. they can't impose a protocol or default value change at all due to the right to fork and the open protocol, only that they have a quite large social power (as "leaders of opinion"). But this power is also limited. And they are only a part of the "developers" power group: they are currently the leaders, but they can lose this status, even if due to inertia this may not occur fastly.

In reality, it's more like a lobbying system -- those with the most influence can effectively dictate the outcome, regardless of what the majority of users or even nodes want.

I agree with that, but not completely with the following sentence:

If core developers, large mining pools, and major exchanges agree on a new direction, they can effectively drag the rest of the network with them -- even if thousands of smaller nodes disagree.

If the majority of economic nodes disagrees with this new direction, then they will very likely successfully repel this change. The "majority" here is of course not the number of nodes, but the influence the nodes have on price.

Exchanges and important other service providers (e.g. Bitpay) have a higher influence per BTC than normal "hodlers" or merchants. But they can't impose a new direction if the majority of other economic nodes disagrees (again, not the node count, but weighted by importance). They can make a difference if there's a 50:50 scenario between supporters and opposers, but not in a 80:20, perhaps even a 60:40 majority is already enough.

Let's delve a bit deeper in your example:

You wrote that if a tiny minority (50 of 10000+) nodes ran a hardforked Bitcoin and had support by Core, most miners, CMC and major exchanges, they would be able to impose a new direction.

Yes, that would be a scary situation and probably lead to high price volatility. I however consider this scenario very unlikely to play out favourably for this big lobbyist cartel which is ignoring the wishes of 95% of the nodes. There will be very likely an immense backlash against these changes (the Segwit war would be nothing compared to that). The node operators will be likely able to impose the original bitcoin by selling the fork coins, even if these fork coins are labeled as "Bitcoin" by the exchanges.

In addition, most of these actors need the "real" Bitcoin users to have success. Exchanges can lose their leadership if they are boycotted by big numbers of users. Miners which change to the opposing "team" would be much more profitable than the other team if the original chain is able to survive the first "attack wave" with less losses than expected.

Of course there is an entity which could help the cartel to succeed, and that's: big whales. That's why I'd not like to see too much state involvement in Bitcoin via big strategic reserves. States/governments do have the power to acquire so many bitcoins that they could make such a fork succeed. Let's say 7, 6 or even 5 million BTC owned by cooperating governments or central banks and sold in a coordinated action on the original chain - this would be quite dangerous. They would have almost a similar power to the Ethereum team which imposed the ETH hard fork against the ETC folks.

Saying things like "go write your own code" or "run your own node with your own rules" is like telling someone to "go start your own country" -- it just doesn't work that way. Your node isn't remotely as important as Foundry's.

But an user majority which owns also a majority of the coins, even if most of these holders are small, does have the power to make that work.

Have you ever seen Core devs posting here asking if we want to implement a new change?

They may not do that here, but they discuss changes on the mailing list and on Github, and everybody can participate.

Taproot wasn't really controversial, so it wasn't "imposed" by Core. Most saw the changes simply as improvements (and imo they were correct, despite of those thinking that Ordinals highlighted a "bug" in Taproot).

That's also questionable. A great example is the UASF event, which was essentially a standoff between Core devs and every other major power.

More precisely it was a standoff between Core devs and a large number of economic nodes (the "community") against the other powers. While the Core devs acted with their social powers as "influencers", those who imposed the change (in reality, the "non-change", because it was directed against a possible 2 MB hardfork) were the nodes, not Core. It's actually a similar example than the action I described above against a big miner/Core/exchange cartel.

[headingnorth]

If this proposal goes through, everybody is free to:

1) Fork Bitcoin Core, change the default values for OP_RETURN back, and continue to maintain the -datacarrier feature (which allows to limit the size of data put in OP_RETURN outputs, but not the data stuffed into fake public keys!).

2) Use another Bitcoin implementation, for example Luke-jr's Bitcoin Knots. That's what many critics of this PR are doing, and this is completely okay!

People often misunderstand Bitcoin's consensus model by comparing it to democratic systems, like elections, where one person equals one vote. But Bitcoin doesn't work that way. In reality, it's more like a lobbying system -- those with the most influence can effectively dictate the outcome, regardless of what the majority of users or even nodes want.

In regards to this particular issue of op-return limits to me it is very simple. I am not a coder but as I understand it
the nodes currently have the option to raise or disregard the op-return limit. So if a node wishes to validate non-monetary
data they are free to do so by simply raising or discarding the op-return limit. That is how the nodes cast a "vote" so to speak.

Which leads me to a question:

Is it possible to know the number of nodes running with the strict limit in place versus those that have raised or discarded the limit?
So assuming the majority of nodes are currently running with the strict data limit in place, then it seems to me certain people or certain devs
who are pro-spam don't like the outcome of the anti-spam "vote" so decided to unilaterally change the code so they can no longer "vote" at all
(via the op-return limit). In other words, force them to abandon any limits whether they like it or not.

By "vote" I mean in the sense of number of nodes running with the strict data limit in place vs those that are not.
For the sake of simplicity let's call it the pro-spam nodes vs. the anti-spam nodes.

That seems like a much more productive and much less disruptive method of voting then taking the drastic step of a hard fork.
So why not just leave the current system in place? If worse to comes to worse, Bitcoin Knots would be the solution by the nodes voting with their feet.

Bitcoin is about having choices, not being told by an unknown shadowy "robust group of individuals" that decides what is good for us.
It is insulting and condescending.

I outlined the best possible scenario! The reality is the group of people making the decisions is quite small. Here's the thing though: if they make "bad" decisions, people will move away from the network. So the Core maintainers are incentivized to make good decisions that are supported by more miners & community than not. Its not "insulting and condescending" so much as the way things have always been.

One would hope the devs are motivated by good intentions. But anyone can be corrupted or coerced by money.
Over time a group of humans tends towards corruption. Because humans tend to crave money and power, they can always be corrupted.
Bitcoin was created so we don't have to hope or trust the intentions of anyone including the devs and the miners.

As you know Bitcoin is TRUSTLESS so we don't have to trust anyone, especially not any individual or group of individuals.
When we place our trust in individuals we are falling into the trap of the corporate top-down model.
As humans we have the tendency to place our trust in a leader. If that is the case then bitcoin has no reason to exist
if we are just going to let the bitcoin network devolve into the corporate top down model of centralized trust and control
with a few at the top calling all the shots.

Bitcoin as a concept of TRUSTLESSNESS was invented to break us free of that age-old model of TRUST.
Bitcoin is a revolution and a radical change from the status quo. The status quo will always be opposed to revolution
and will do anything they can to crush it. The only thing you can trust about humans is they will act in their own self-interest
over the greater good.

[mikeywith]

In my interpretation the Core team is the entity with the least amount of technical power,

They also tend to have the smallest financial stake, which ironically makes them potentially more dangerous than miners or exchanges -- not due to malicious intent, but because their actions are often driven by passion, innovation, and personal conviction rather than rational economic incentives. (Sorry fellow members core devs, nothing personal  )

What makes this even more complex is the level of community support they receive. In almost every controversy, people are forced to choose between supporting profit-driven miners and exchanges, or a small group of talented developers who happen to be good at writing C code. Naturally, the latter often appear more principled and thus gain more support.

Take the UASF saga as an example. Miners ultimately backed down -- not because they couldn't win, but because maintaining a contentious chain split would have risked catastrophic damage to the entire ecosystem. Core developers, on the other hand, had relatively little at stake financially, which gave them the freedom to push ahead without the same level of risk.

For anyone who read my earlier post and came away thinking that Bitcoin isn't decentralized in decision-making, it absolutly is. While we often refer to 'Core devs' as a unified group, in reality, there's constant internal disagreement. The same goes for miners and exchanges. Everyone involved -- whether it's a miner with millions in infrastructure, an exchange handling billions in volume, or a developer who's sacrificed their eyesight debugging low-level code -- wants what's best for Bitcoin, each from their own perspective.

So, even if your individual vote doesn't mean shit, you can at least take comfort in this, unlike traditional monetary systems, Bitcoin isn't shaped by a handful of old men in a closed room. It's a global, open-source lobbying arena, where every stakeholder is fighting for the future of Bitcoin -- usually in pursuit of their own self-interest, which, more often than not, aligns with your own.

[gmaxwell]

They also tend to have the smallest financial stake,

How would you possibly know anything about anyone's finances??? 

Does it give you a little sexual thrill to just make shit up? lol  The reality is that developers tend to be people whose only financial interest is the value of Bitcoin, -- they're not pushing some company or influencer brand or whatever but that by no means means makes their interest insubstantial.

then it seems to me certain people or certain devs
who are pro-spam don't like the outcome of the anti-spam "vote" so decided to unilaterally change the code so they can no longer "vote" at all
(via the op-return limit). In other words, force them to abandon any limits whether they like it or not.

Why are you wasting your own time and everyone else's by commenting on this when you have no idea what's going on and clearly haven't even read the thread here? That's just really bad conduct.  I'd respond correcting but clearly there is no point since you haven't read whats already been discussed.

[d5000]

So why not just leave the current system in place? If worse to comes to worse, Bitcoin Knots would be the solution by the nodes voting with their feet.

We have already discussed this in the thread, but there is also a pull request which removes the default limitation for OP_RETURN  (i.e. these are only limited the max transaction size) but does not remove the datacarriersize parameter. The nodes then could continue to "vote". (It's also not really a vote, it only affects the own node's behavior.)

But this pull request had about the same level of disapproval of the original one. Which is a bit disappointing, because it shows that the opposers aren't really concerned with the nodes' choices to configure their nodes like they want. Instead, they want to preserve restriction of the least harmful method to store data (OP_RETURN), but they seem to be still totally okay with spam instead stuffed into fake public keys (e.g. Bitcoin Stamps) which spam not only the blockchain but also the UTXO set.

I believe also that there are only very few Core devs which really are "pro-spam" or which do not care about blockchain congestion (read the mailing list discussion for more about that, there's literally nobody argumenting in favour of things like Ordinals). The intent of the OP_RETURN limit lifting is that Bitcoin users that want to store data, should use a less harmful method than the fake public keys method. So yes, I suggest to hear gmaxwell's advice and read through the first 5 pages of this thread.

Ah, and you mentioned a hard fork, but this is absolutely not possible with the discussed change here, as the OP_RETURN limits are not a part of the Bitcoin protocol. The discussion with @mikeywith touched the topic of hard forks only because we discussed the role of Core devs in Bitcoin's power ecosystem.

@mikeywith: I think I agree with you about the points in your last post.