A Bitcoin developer known as dathonohm has introduced BIP-444, which suggests temporarily restricting the addition of arbitrary data to the blockchain to mitigate the risk of illegal content placement.
The initiative is a response to the controversial upgrade of Bitcoin Core v30, which increased the data transmission limit in OP_RETURN outputs from 80 to 100,000 bytes. This update sparked a strong reaction from the community, with critics pointing to potential risks of spreading illegal content.
“If the blockchain contains data prohibited from storage or distribution, node operators are forced to choose between breaking the law (or their moral principles) and disconnecting from the network. This unacceptable dilemma directly undermines the incentives for validation, leads to inevitable centralization, and creates an existential threat to Bitcoin’s security model,” states BIP-444.
dathonohm proposed limiting OP_RETURN outputs to 83 bytes and most other scriptPubKeys to 34. This would block the addition of large scripts and data, including “inscriptions” on the Ordinals protocol.
The initiative would also limit the size of embedded Merkle trees in Taproot outputs and prohibit OP_IF within Tapscripts.
Community Divided Again
Implementing BIP-444 would lead to a soft fork, rendering previously valid transactions invalid, but only for one year.
It is expected that during this time, Bitcoin developers will be able to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the situation and implement alternative methods for storing arbitrary data on the blockchain.
“The explicitly temporary nature of the soft fork further emphasizes that this is a targeted intervention to mitigate a specific crisis, not a proposal for a new direction of development,” the proposal clarifies.
Lead Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr supported the initiative, stating that it “aligns with the strategic course and has no technical obstacles.”
“This is not a perfect proposal, but it is good enough and simple enough to buy time for developing a long-term solution,” he added.
Critics of BIP-444 argue that restricting data sizes contradicts Bitcoin’s fundamental principle and is tantamount to censorship.
Many also noted the strange wording of the proposal — the refusal to conduct a soft fork could allegedly lead to “legal or moral consequences.” The founder of a Bitcoin educational resource and engineer known as Bam drew a parallel with George Orwell’s “1984.”
Programmer Ben Kaufman called the initiative an attempt to attack the first cryptocurrency network.
A fork under the threat of “legal consequences” is the most clear case of an attack on Bitcoin
— Ben Kaufman (@_benkaufman) October 26, 2025
Alex Thorn from Galaxy Digital agreed with him, adding that such an attack is “incredibly foolish.”
However, some believed that there was a misunderstanding among community members. They said the author of the proposal referred to legal or moral responsibility, which was discussed in the context of the Bitcoin Core v30 update.
Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp questioned the necessity of implementing BIP-444. He stated that the concept of illegal content potentially published on the digital gold network is too vague.
“There are many legal jurisdictions and subjective views on content, but Bitcoin as a system does not recognize any of them,” he wrote.
Earlier, the first cryptocurrency community intensified discussions on possible measures to protect the network from potential quantum threats.