A new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal regarding a soft fork has sparked outrage on the X platform, as some of its content has been accused of threatening legal consequences for those who refuse the fork.

The proposal was released by core developer Luke Dashjr on Friday, marking a new phase in the recent "Bitcoin Core" versus "Knots" debate, which revolves around what Bitcoin should be used for and whether non-financial transactions should be filtered.

The proposal aims to limit the amount of data in Bitcoin transactions through a one-year soft fork. At the same time, it seeks a more permanent solution to address the issue of criminals potentially embedding illegal or unethical content into the blockchain since the Bitcoin Core v30 update.

However, in this improvement proposal, the developer wrote in line 261: "Any attempt to reject this soft fork presents moral and legal obstacles."

The developer further elaborated in lines 270 to 272: "Refusing this soft fork may expose you to legal or moral consequences, or lead you to fork off into a new coin similar to Bitcoin Cash (BCH). But strictly speaking, you have the freedom of choice."

As the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin aims to disrupt traditional financial systems and empower individuals. Critics argue that any form of censorship or data size limitation contradicts the core principle of Bitcoin's permissionless use.

According to users on the X platform, on Sunday, a user named Bam (who is also the founder of a Bitcoin educational resource and a systems engineer) posted that the relevant wording is "highly Orwellian," alluding to the future totalitarian society depicted by writer George Orwell in "1984."

Programmer Ben Kaufman stated, "Threatening legal consequences to push a fork is the most blatant attack on Bitcoin."

Canadian cryptographer and computer scientist Peter Todd also shared a screenshot of Dashjr and commented, "It's clear he hopes his soft fork will be adopted due to legal threats."

Alex Thorn from Galaxy Digital commented under Todd's post, agreeing: "This is indeed a public attack on Bitcoin, but also very foolish."

Others in the industry warned that if miners and users disagree over activation issues, there could be a risk of chain split.

For a long time, users have been able to embed messages on-chain; the recent Bitcoin Core v30 update allows for larger data payloads. The proposal argues that this could expose anyone participating in the network to criminal liability if illegal content is included in transactions.

Some users on the X platform believe that this liability is what the proposal refers to, meaning that if this fork is not adopted, illegal content may appear on the blockchain, leading to legal or moral risks.

Dashjr himself seems to support this view, as he responded to a user's comments about the illegality of rejecting the soft fork by stating, "I didn't say that. If you think the wording is unclear, you can suggest clarifications."

He added, "'May' does not mean 'must.' Additionally, to provide context, I believe this part originated from an early draft when there was no active activation mechanism (i.e., the opposing chain would definitely contain CSAM), so it does indeed need some clarifications now."

Dashjr introduced that the soft fork proposal has now entered the advancement stage, with no technical objections.

However, Todd may have found a way to exploit this fix. He claims to have recorded a transaction containing the entire proposed text, which is "100% standard and fully compatible" with this improvement proposal.

According to BitMEX Research, if malicious actors attempt to carry out a double-spending attack, they could place illegal content on the chain to "trigger a reorganization and execute the attack," thus creating an economic incentive to upload illegal content to the blockchain.

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Original article: “Analyst: Bitcoin Under Attack” — BTC supporters criticize the “legal threat” in the soft fork proposal

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