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October 13, 2025Bitcoinist logoBitcoinist

Bitcoin Core v30 Goes Live Despite OP_RETURN Debate

Bitcoin Core version 30.0 is now available, marking the project’s first major release since v29 and closing the book on legacy branches 27. x and older, which are now designated “End of Life.” The maintainers’ release notes state plainly: “With the release of this new major version, versions 27. x and older are at ‘End of Life’ and will no longer receive updates.” The new binaries and full notes are live on the project site, with the team also posting a brief launch confirmation on ￰0￱ Core V30 Is Here The most disputed change in v30 is a policy update around OP_RETURN—the script path used for provably unspendable outputs that can carry arbitrary ￰1￱ Core has raised the default -datacarriersize limit to 100,000 bytes and now permits multiple data-carrier (OP_RETURN) outputs in a single transaction for relay and mining.

Crucially, node operators can still restore the previous behavior: “It can be overridden with -datacarriersize=83 to revert to the limit enforced in previous versions.” The aggregate size limit applies across all OP_RETURN outputs in a ￰2￱ default increase—functionally “uncapping” data carrier size because the transaction-size ceiling will be encountered first—has kicked off a broader argument about what kinds of activity Bitcoin’s policy layer should favor or ￰3￱ and node operators who back the change frame it as neutral plumbing that preserves operator choice; critics warn it invites more non-monetary inscriptions and potential spam , raising storage and validation burdens for the average ￰4￱ OP_RETURN, v30 delivers a long list of network, wallet, and tooling ￰5￱ P2P layer improves package relay so that common topologies like grandparent-parent-child or multi-parent-one-child can propagate more reliably when only one ancestor needs fee ￰6￱ transaction orphanage introduces stronger DoS limits based on total entries and weight across peers, replacing the now-retired -maxorphantx ￰7￱ gain an experimental IPC mining interface accessible through a new umbrella bitcoin command that also provides convenience aliases—“bitcoin node,” “bitcoin gui,” and “bitcoin rpc”—without deprecating existing ￰8￱ signing on Windows is re-enabled, and the coinstats index has been reworked to avoid an overflow bug seen on default Signet, requiring a one-time resync of that index.

Fee-policy defaults also ￰9￱ minimum block feerate setting (-blockmintxfee) now defaults to 0.001 sat/vB, while both the minimum relay and incremental relay feerates default to 0.1 sat/vB. The notes stress that unless these lower defaults are broadly adopted, propagation and confirmation are not guaranteed; wallet feerates themselves are unchanged without explicit ￰10￱ OP_RETURN policy change has quickly spilled beyond developer channels into Bitcoin’s public discourse, with long-time contributors and publication editors lining up on both ￰11￱ Bitcoin Core 30.0’s larger data-carrier default and allowance for multiple OP_RETURN outputs are viewed by proponents as policy neutral and adjustable at the node level; detractors see a vector for abuse that blurs the network’s monetary focus which could even spark a hard ￰12￱ press time, BTC traded at $114,455.

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