The Bitcoin community is split over the decision to remove the limit on data in transactions.
On May 5, Bitcoin developer Greg Sanders announced on GitHub that the next version of Bitcoin Core “will, by default, relay and mine transactions whose OP_RETURN outputs exceed 80 bytes and allow any number of these outputs“.
According to Sanders, this restriction — initially introduced as a compromise to signal that block space should be used sparingly for non-financial transaction data — has now outlived its usefulness.
The proposal (PR 32359) was created by developer Peter Todd. OP_RETURN is a Bitcoin feature that allows small amounts of arbitrary data (such as text, images, videos, or messages) to be embedded within a transaction on the timechain. It’s a space where information can be “written” and preserved permanently on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Sanders argued that the original limit is no longer effective, as users have found ways to circumvent it, such as using fake output addresses — practices that are actually more harmful to the network. Moreover, certain transaction acceleration services like MARA Slipstream and Mempool Accelerator were already ignoring this limit. Sanders explained:
“Large-data inscriptions are happening regardless and can be done in more or less abusive ways; the cap merely channels them into more opaque forms that cause damage to the network.”
A controversy that splits the community
Not everyone is welcoming the change. Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3, commented on X:
Marty Bent, managing partner at Ten31 Fund, stated:
Some users have raised concerns that Bitcoin’s financial utility could be deprioritized and have questioned the presence of possible undisclosed conflicts of interest.
Meanwhile, the share of nodes running the implementation created by developer Luke Dashjr, Bitcoin Knots, has surpassed 4.5%, according to data from Clark Moody Bitcoin.
