Chun Wang, co-founder of significant Bitcoin mining swimming pool F2Pool, pressed back versus a proposed momentary soft fork targeted at restricting information spam on the Bitcoin network.
Wang composed in a Monday X post that “BIP-444 is a bad concept.” He included that he, and probably F2Pool, are “not going to soft fork anything,” whether it is “momentary or not.”
He stated, “Feel unfortunate that some devs [are] moving even more and even more in the incorrect instructions.”
Bitcoin Enhancement Proposition (BIP) -444 is a short-lived soft-fork proposition for the Bitcoin network targeted at limiting the addition of approximate information, which its advocates see generally as spam. The soft fork would restrict non-transaction information– which makes it possible for alternative usages for the Bitcoin blockchain– to 83 bytes, to name a few constraints.
Related: Bitcoin upgrade is splitting designers and perfectionists
BIP-444 and its raison d’être
BIP-444 seems an action to a late September upgrade from leading Bitcoin node software application Bitcoin Core. The upgrade in concern got rid of the 80-byte cap on OP_RETURN, a part of a deal script that enables users to embed approximate information.
Numerous have actually seen the modification as business capture of the Bitcoin blockchain, given that it enables business to construct layer twos and other facilities on Bitcoin. In addition, some argue that enabling more approximate information onchain lead to faster boosts in blockchain size, greater node requirements and higher centralization.
Others mentioned that this belongs to an argument that goes back to the really early days of Bitcoin (BTC). Furthermore, advocates of the modification emphasize that it is tough to make sure miners implement a guideline that breaks their own rewards. A January 2024 evaluation exposed that miners, such as F2Pool, were currently consisting of non-standard deals that went beyond OP_RETURN limitations.
The BIP, sent by pseudonymous designer Dathon Ohm, is called a “Decreased Information Short-term Softfork” and recommends to “momentarily restrict the size of information fields at the agreement level.” The limitation would last up until Bitcoin obstruct 987,424, or about 1.27 years from now.
In a devoted newsletter, the developer described that “the concept is to highly declare in agreement that bitcoin is cash, not information storage.” “After a year, the soft fork ends, providing us time to come up with a more long-term service,” they stated.
Related: Ordinals dev drifts forking Bitcoin Core in the middle of censorship issues
What does BIP-444 do?
BIP-444 is a short-lived soft fork that would close most data-embedding courses on Bitcoin, consisting of more stringent size caps on outputs and presses, prohibits on annex, unidentified witness variations, deep Taproot trees, OP_SUCCESS * and conditional branches. This restricts Ordinal-based non-fungible token (NFT) development, big information payloads and complicated scripts while keeping easy financial untouched.
The BIP text argues that with contemporary information compression, it is possible to embed “objectionable images (typically prohibited to even have) in as couple of as 300– 400 bytes.” This would permit “a destructive star to mine a single deal with prohibited or widely abhorrent material and credibly declare that Bitcoin itself is a system for dispersing it.”
Bitcoin designer and cypherpunk Peter Todd, on the other hand, specified that the method is likewise inefficient in attaining its desired objective. Todd showed this by embedding the whole BIP-444 text in a Bitcoin deal that would be certified with the soft fork.
Still, the supporter of the modification highlighted that sending it costs over $100 in costs and argued that if embedding prohibited information is made harder, “it would not make good sense to hold node operators lawfully accountable.” They described:
” If Bitcoin supplies a formally supported approach of keeping approximate information […] node operators might possibly be delegated belongings and circulation.”
Still, some see the difference as approximate and impractical. One X user showed the concept by sharing 2 commands that would collect information from an image kept on the Bitcoin network, highlighting how limited the distinctions remain in practice.
Publication: ZK-proofs are bringing wise agreements to Bitcoin