Key Takeaways
- 71% of Bitcoin Minimalist readers oppose non-financial transactions on Bitcoin.
- The upcoming Bitcoin Core 30 update will raise the OP_RETURN data limit from 80 bytes to almost 4MB.
- Reader comments highlight community concerns over network purity and user control.
Core update sparks debate
Bitcoin Core 30, slated for release in October, will increase the OP_RETURN data limit from 80 bytes to nearly 4MB, matching the current block size cap.
This change has reignited debate over whether Bitcoin should allow non-financial transactions, such as arbitrary data storage using OP_RETURN and Ordinals-like features.
Reader poll results
Bitcoin Minimalist–Bitbo’s newsletter–recently asked its readers:
“Should Bitcoin allow non-financial transactions?”
Of those who voted, 71% said “No - keep Bitcoin focused on money.”
Only a minority supported broadening Bitcoin’s use cases; the remainder were unsure.
“Core does not want you to have the option. That is the problem; they are taking away your ability to run your node how you see fit. This is not the way. Run Knots!”
“Absolutely not, keep it pure!”
Another respondent, added:
“The purpose of Bitcoin the Network is to facilitate Bitcoin the Money. Non-monetary transaction are parasitic, adding nothing to the value of the money or the network, only lining the pockets of high time-preference crypto VCs and adversarial miners at the expense of gullible fools who buy the scams and node runners (the real users) who have to download and store this garbage.”
However, some readers disagreed:
“Bitcoin is perfect money. But also is much more than just money.”
Governance and control
The upcoming Core release will allow users to manually enforce stricter data limits, but these options are now deprecated and may be removed in the future. Critics warn this could reduce user sovereignty, while developers argue the update addresses technical inefficiencies.
