The debate over the future of Bitcoin is nothing new, but this week the debate took a more sharp edge. One of Bitcoin’s longtime developers has been at the heart of a storm about immutability, censorship, and the meaning of “saving” protocols.
The controversy escalated on September 25th following an article published by The Rage revealing that Luke Dashjr, a maintainer of Bitcoin Knots software, would advocate forks that install trustworthy multi-sig committees that have the power to retroactively modify the blockchain, review transactions, and remove illegal content.
Blockchain hard forks are a permanent divergence with previous versions of blockchain software, and because new and older versions are not compatible, all participants must upgrade to the new protocol.
The film allegedly claimed a leaked text message that Dashjr allegedly warned him that “Bitcoin is dead or you have to trust someone.”
The story expands to X, drawing hundreds of thousands of perspectives and strengthening long-term philosophical rifts. Should Bitcoin remain a neutral payments tier, or should developers actively filter what counts as legitimate use of the network?
Dashjr has completely rejected the claim. “The truth is, I’m not proposing anything like a hard fork. These bad actors are just keeping track of the straw to slander me and undermine my efforts to save Bitcoin again,” he writes.
Anger responded with memes about the effectiveness of requiring that the story be known to know who sent the leaked message that it shared.
Dashjr repeated his position over and over the next 24 hours. “No, nothing will change. No one is still looking for a hard fork,” he posted. In another reply, he emphasized, “There are no hard forks.”
Splitting the knot and core
Behind the conflict is the deeper gap between DashJR’s Bitcoin Knots project and the wider Bitcoin core software used in most networks.
Knots enforce stricter transaction policies, such as blocking non-financial data such as ordinal inscriptions and rune tokens. Dashjr and his supporters argue that such measures will protect Bitcoin’s financial integrity and protect it from regulatory risks. Core developers have historically adopted a more tolerant approach, allowing non-standard data unless they break the consensus.
The suspicious hard fork proposal was cut into the centre of that tension. For Dashjr’s critics, his vision seemed to confirm the fear that there was a need to compromise on the principles of immutability of Bitcoin. For his defender, the leak was an opportunistic smear designed to derail the case for a stronger spam filter.
Among his defenders was Udi Wertheimer, co-founder of Taproot Wizards, a Bitcoin ordinance project, and assumes that there is little embodying everything Dashjr opposes.
“I’m not a fan of Luke, but this is a hit and fake news. He’s not proposing this,” Wertheimer posted on X, referring to the supposed hard fork plan.
“I’m not (obviously) on Luke’s side… but this is a much lower quality propaganda piece,” he writes.
Wertheimer concluded that Dasjhr’s leaked message is a hypothetical argument about allowing knot nodes to avoid downloading “spam” using proof of zero knowledge.
“This is nothing burger, as always,” he concluded. “This proposal will never be implemented, and even so, it is clear that it will not censor the network, split the network, and remain fully compatible with Core.”
Over the last 24 hours, it is worth noting, 2.2% traded at around $109,000, down more than 5.5% last week.
There is no direct evidence to link this dip to the controversy over Dashjr’s alleged plan, but the timing is of little use. In the crypto market, uncertainty alone can amplify downward pressure, and rumors of a radical change in protocol tend to cause just that.