Chun Wang, co-founder of leading Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool, opposed a proposed temporary soft fork aimed at limiting data spam on the Bitcoin network.
“BIP-444 is a bad idea,” Wang wrote in a Monday X post. He added that he and likely F2Pool “have no intention of soft forking anything,” whether it’s “temporary or not.”
he said: “Some developers feel bad.” [are] We are increasingly going in the wrong direction. ”
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-444 is a temporary soft fork proposal for the Bitcoin network that aims to limit the inclusion of arbitrary data that proponents consider primarily spam. The soft fork would limit non-transactional data (enabling alternative uses of the Bitcoin blockchain) to 83 bytes, among other limits.
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BIP-444 and its significance
BIP-444 appears to be a response to a late September update to the main Bitcoin node software Bitcoin Core. The update in question removed the 80-byte limit for OP_RETURN, which is part of a transaction script that allows users to embed arbitrary data.
Many see this change as a corporate capture of the Bitcoin blockchain, as it allows companies to build Layer 2 and other infrastructure on top of Bitcoin. Additionally, some argue that allowing more arbitrary data on-chain will increase blockchain size faster, increase node requirements, and increase centralization.
Some point out that this is part of the debate going back to the early days of Bitcoin (BTC). Furthermore, proponents of this change emphasize that it will be difficult for miners to enforce rules that go against their own incentives. A January 2024 review revealed that miners such as F2Pool were already containing non-standard transactions that exceeded the OP_RETURN limit.
The BIP submitted by pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm is called “Reduced Data Temporary Softfork” and proposes “temporarily limiting the size of data fields at the consensus level.” This restriction will last until Bitcoin block 987,424, or approximately 1.27 years from now.
“The purpose is to strongly reaffirm the consensus that Bitcoin is money, not data storage,” the creators explained on a dedicated mailing list. “After one year, the soft fork will expire, giving us time to come up with a more permanent solution,” they said.
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What does BIP-444 do?
BIP-444 is a temporary soft fork that will close most data embedding paths on Bitcoin. This includes stricter size limits for outputs and pushes, banning annexes, unknown monitor versions, deep taproot trees, OP_SUCCESS*, and conditional branching. This limits ordinal-based non-fungible token (NFT) creation, large data payloads, and complex scripts, while leaving simple money unaffected.
The BIP document claims that with modern data compression, it is possible to embed “objectionable images (often illegal to even possess) in just 300 to 400 bytes.” This allows “a malicious actor to mine a single transaction containing illegal or generally abhorrent content and credibly claim that Bitcoin itself is the system for distributing it.”
Meanwhile, Bitcoin developer and cypherpunk Peter Todd said this approach is also ineffective in achieving its intended goals. Todd demonstrated this by embedding the entire BIP-444 text into soft fork-compliant Bitcoin transactions.
Still, supporters of the change emphasized that submissions would cost more than $100 in fees and argued that if it made it more difficult to embed illegal data, “it makes no sense to hold node operators legally responsible.” They explained:
“If Bitcoin provides an officially supported way to store arbitrary data […] It is also possible that the node operator will be responsible for ownership and distribution. ”
Still, some think this distinction is arbitrary and unrealistic. One X user demonstrated the idea by sharing two commands that collect data from images stored on the Bitcoin network, highlighting how little difference there really is.
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