Bitcoin Core reverses course on OP_RETURN deprecation

Developers keep manual configurability of the datacarriersize after protests from Knots node operators.

Just hours before the scheduled release of Bitcoin Core version 30, developers made a U-turn regarding the handling of OP_RETURN, one of the most hotly debated changes planned for the software upgrade.

Pull request #33453 was merged into Bitcoin Core’s main branch on GitHub last night thanks to the intervention of maintainer Ava Chow. The move marks a partial victory for the movement led by Knots node operators, who strongly opposed the facilitation measures introduced by Core concerning the OP_RETURN datacarriersize parameter.

According to the view shared by many Knots node operators, the mempools of most nodes should by default automatically reject transactions containing large amounts of data unrelated to bitcoin’s on-chain movement. Their goal, they argue, is to avoid burdening node operators with the task of storing and relaying arbitrary data across the network for non-monetary uses of BTC.

Although Bitcoin Core v30 software will still increase OP_RETURN’s datacarriersize from roughly 80 bytes to an effective maximum close to 4 MB per output, version 30 will retain and no longer plan to remove the ability for users to manually adjust this cap on the quantity of arbitrary data contained in OP_RETURN outputs.

The removal of the datacarrier and datacarriersize configuration options was originally scheduled for the October release of Core v30. However, thanks to the successful review and merge of PR 33453, deprecation of user configurability is now on hold indefinitely.

This policy change represents a compromise between the differing views within the Bitcoin community on the use of the timechain for storing non-transactional data.

The post Bitcoin Core reverses course on OP_RETURN deprecation appeared first on Atlas21.

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