According to Wang Chun, co-founder of the major Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool, he has expressed opposition to a temporary soft fork proposal aimed at limiting data spam on the Bitcoin network.
Wang Chun stated on the X platform on Monday, "BIP-444 is a bad idea." He added that neither he nor F2Pool, as he speculated, "will conduct any soft fork, whether temporary or not."
He remarked, "It is unfortunate to see some developers going further and further 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, which its supporters mainly view as spam. This soft fork would restrict non-transaction data (i.e., data that allows the Bitcoin blockchain to serve other purposes) to 83 bytes, while also setting other related regulations.
BIP-444 appears to be a response to the update of the leading Bitcoin node software Bitcoin Core at the end of September. The relevant update removed the 80-byte limit on OP_RETURN, which is part of the transaction script that allows users to embed arbitrary data.
Many believe that this change could lead to increased control of the Bitcoin blockchain by enterprises, as it enables companies to build second-layer networks and other infrastructures on top of Bitcoin. Additionally, some argue that allowing more arbitrary data on-chain would accelerate blockchain bloat, raising the threshold for running nodes and exacerbating centralization trends.
Many industry insiders point out that this debate has existed since the early days of Bitcoin (BTC). Furthermore, supporters of the change emphasize that it is difficult to ensure miners will execute rules that go against their own interests. A review in January 2024 showed that miners, including F2Pool, have already been packaging non-standard transactions that exceed the OP_RETURN limit.
According to information submitted by pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm, this BIP is referred to as the "Temporary Soft Fork to Reduce Data." It suggests temporarily limiting the size of data fields at the consensus level. This limitation will last until the 987,424th Bitcoin block, which is approximately 1.27 years away.
In a dedicated mailing list, the proposal authors explained, "The idea is to strongly reaffirm in consensus that Bitcoin is a currency, not a data storage." "A year later, this soft fork will expire, giving us time to find a more permanent solution," they stated.
BIP-444 is a temporary soft fork that will close most paths for embedding data on Bitcoin, including stricter data size limits on outputs and push operations, prohibiting Annex extension fields, unknown witness versions, deep Taproot trees, OP_SUCCESS*, and conditional execution branches. This will limit the creation of NFTs based on the Ordinal protocol, large data payloads, and complex scripts, while not affecting simple currency functions.
The BIP text notes that with modern compression techniques, only 300–400 bytes are needed to embed "offensive (often even illegal to possess) images." This means that malicious actors could mine a single transaction containing illegal or offensive content and claim that Bitcoin itself has become a platform for disseminating such content.
Bitcoin developer and cypherpunk Peter Todd stated that this practice would not actually achieve the intended goals. Todd demonstrated this by embedding the entire BIP-444 text in a Bitcoin transaction that meets the requirements of the soft fork.
Supporters of the change pointed out that sending such transactions would require paying over $100 in fees. They believe that if embedding illegal data becomes more difficult, node operators would not have to bear legal liability. They explained:
Nevertheless, some argue that this distinction is arbitrary and impractical. An X user illustrated this idea by sharing two commands to extract data from images stored on the Bitcoin network, emphasizing the rarity of differences in practice.
Related: As the probability of a Federal Reserve rate cut surpasses 98%, Bitcoin (BTC) prices begin to break through the $112,000 mark.
Original text: “F2Pool Co-Founder Refuses to Support Bitcoin (BTC) BIP-444 Soft Fork, Calls it a ‘Bad Idea’”
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