Bitcoin Soft Fork Sparks Fury Over ‘Legal Threats’ – Core Devs Face Backlash

A new Bitcoin improvement proposal has ignited controversy across the Bitcoin community, with developers and users clashing over claims that it threatens legal consequences for those who reject ￰1￱ proposal, titled Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 444 (BIP-444), was published late Friday by an anonymous developer using the alias “Dathon Ohm.” It calls for a temporary soft fork to limit the amount of arbitrary data that can be included in Bitcoin transactions, a move supporters say is meant to protect node operators from legal risks, but critics are calling an attempt to impose censorship on the ￰2￱ Threats or Misunderstood Wording? Inside Bitcoin’s Latest Developer Feud The document, which spans multiple technical sections, includes a contentious line that has become the center of the ￰3￱ line 261, it states that “there is a moral and legal impediment to any attempt to reject this soft fork.” A few lines later, between lines 270 and 272, it adds: “Rejecting this soft fork may subject you to legal or moral consequences or could result in you splitting off to a new altcoin like Bcash.

However, strictly speaking, you are free to choose.”), with critics accusing the proposal’s authors of using “legal threats” to coerce the Bitcoin community into accepting the soft ￰4￱ Kaufman, a Bitcoin developer, descr ibed it as “the most clear case of an attack on Bitcoin.” Canadian cryptographer Peter Todd shared a screenshot of the section, saying it was “clear Luke Dashjr expects his soft fork to get adopted due to legal threats.” A fork under the threat of “legal consequences” is the most clear case of an attack on Bitcoin — Ben Kaufman (@_benkaufman) October 26, 2025 Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn called it “explicitly an attack on Bitcoin” and “incredibly stupid.” Luke Dashjr, a longtime Bitcoin Core developer and outspoken critic of Ordinals, has publicly supported the proposal but denied writing ￰5￱ said on X that the soft fork is “on track with no technical objections,” describ ing it as a “simple, temporary measure” to buy time for a long-term solution.

“This isn’t intended to be an ideal fix,” he wrote, “only good enough to give us breathing room.” ￰6￱ 444 is already on track with no technical objections. ￰0￱ — Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) October 26, 2025 New Bitcoin Proposal Seeks to Limit Data Storage, Citing Legal Threats to Node Operators The soft fork proposal follows the release of Bitcoin Core v30 , which went live earlier this ￰7￱ update effectively lifted the 83-byte limit on OP_RETURN data, allowing larger payloads to be attached to Bitcoin ￰8￱ only about 6.5% of reachable nodes have adopted v30 so far, according to Bitnodes data , the change has reignited debate over what Bitcoin should, and should not, be used for.) or shutting down their node,” the document states.

“This unacceptable dilemma directly undermines the incentive to validate, leading to inevitable centralization and posing an existential threat to Bitcoin’s security model.” To address that, the proposal introduces a set of technical restrictions. OP_RETURN outputs would be capped at 83 bytes, most other scriptPubKeys at 34 bytes, and data push sizes limited to 256 ￰9￱ also seeks to invalidate unused script versions, restrict Taproot Merkle trees, and ban the OP_IF command in Tapscript, a change that would effectively disable Ordinals ￰10￱ measures would make some transactions previously considered valid become invalid, though the proposal emphasizes that the soft fork would last only about a year while developers seek a permanent ￰11￱ Fix or Threat to Bitcoin’s Voluntary Consensus?

Despite the technical rationale, the proposal’s wording has alarmed many ￰12￱ called the “moral and legal impediment” language “Orwellian,” referencing George Orwell’s depiction of authoritarian control in ￰13￱ warned that using moral or legal arguments to push through a fork contradicts Bitcoin’s principle of voluntary ￰14￱ of the proposal argue that the “legal consequences” phrasing has been ￰15￱ say the line refers to the potential liability that could arise from running nodes containing illegal content, not an actual legal threat to ￰16￱ himself echoed this explanation, saying , “It doesn’t say ￰17￱ you can propose a clarification if you think it’s unclear.” It doesn't say ￰18￱ you can propose a clarification if you think it's unclear — Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) October 26, 2025 He added that “may isn’t certain,” suggesting that the clause originated in an earlier draft and should be updated for clarity.

Still, many remain ￰19￱ Lopp, co-founder of Bitcoin security firm Casa, criticized the proposal for failing to define what constitutes “illegal or immoral” content, noting that “legal experts disagree on the liability node operators would face.” Lopp added, “By running a node, you consent to the consensus rules of the ￰20￱ you don’t consent, you can simply not run a node.”) September 6, 2025 “There is no meaningful difference between normalizing the censorship of JPEG or memecoin transactions and normalizing the censorship of monetary transactions by nation-states,” he said. Meanwhile, Peter Todd claimed to have already demonstrated a workaround, posting a transaction that he said contains the entire text of BIP-444 yet remains “100% standard and fully compatible” with the proposed rules, a move that, if true, would undermine the technical purpose of the soft ￰21￱ BIP-444 proposal has not yet been submitted to Bitcoin’s official development mailing list, a necessary step before any draft improvement proposal can move toward formal review or ￰22￱ the uproar around its language has already deepened existing divisions between developers over the direction of Bitcoin’s protocol.