More stats on the OP_RETURN filter, confirming that yes, it makes spam more expensive:

First of all, I'll note that Leishman is not a neutral third-party observer – he has ties to Core:

I think this is important to point out as a lot of people have given up on trying to understand the technical arguments and instead are relying on appeals to authority. Appeals to authority are much less effective when the authority is biased.

As far as addressing his arguments, I made an attempt to do so here:

And I've lightly edited these arguments and presented them again on SN here:

I am just a guy on the internet that wants to see Bitcoin succeed as sound money, which is why I'm pro-Knots. I have absolutely zero connection with anyone on either side. I am also a non-expert. I've tried to piece together what I can by reading, watching, and perhaps most importantly, thinking and writing.

The more I (think I) understand about the technical side, the more I have to assume that those experts who are basically saying "relax, this is a nothingburger" and trying to shove this change through have ulterior motives – such as Leishman above, or the main Q&A thread on SN, which conveniently doesn't mention the points I've made (to my knowledge – I haven't read the entire thing).

Using the word "allow", as in "Is Core allowing more spam by removing OP_RETURN limits", is misleading. Nobody who is making the pro-Knots argument is claiming that mempool policies will affect what is or is not "allowed".

What they are claiming is that OP_RETURN limits disincentivize spammers from creating transactions that violate those limits by making them more expensive. All else being equal, the more expensive it is to spam, the less of it there will be in the blockchain (ironically, this is exactly what many pro-Core people say we need – incentives to guide desirable behavior).

Why do OP_RETURN limits, or in general, any standardness rule, make non-standard transactions more expensive? In several ways (the writeup below is lightly edited from [1]):

These are all very real deterrents to non-standard transactions.

For one data point, see [2] which shows that since the beginning of this year, there have been THIRTY non-standard OP_RETURN transactions out of SEVEN MILLION. This serves both as an example showing non-standard transactions still being "allowed" on the blockchain (what pro-Core people love to repeatedly point out), as well as the effectiveness of the existing OP_RETURN filter. What do you think will happen to the number of non-standard OP_RETURN transactions if we remove this filter?

While I'm at it, I also want to address these arguments about how removing OP_RETURN limits will improve the situation with miner centralization. I think these arguments are incomplete – the real outcome is unclear (although I think more likely a net negative for decentralization).

Divide the miners today into three categories:

Now let's say OP_RETURN limits are removed, what would happen to each of these three groups?

NSA loses its monopoly over non-standard transactions, whereas NSD gains access to lucrative transactions it previously didn't have access to, so NSA loses relative to NSD. This is what the pro-Core people have been arguing. This seems like a good thing. But what about P? Not only do they not benefit from this change, they will likely suffer relative to NSA and NSD. Non-standard transaction spam becomes cheaper (an important point, not to be forgotten, and previously established above) and demand for such spam increases, likely leading to an increase in the overall revenue from spam transactions, which NSA and NSD benefit from but P does not, making P less competitive. And P happens to include entities like Ocean, which play a critical role in the overall decentralization effort.

This is of course all speculative on my part, but my point is merely that this is not a clear win for decentralization, as the pro-Core people have been claiming.

This last argument was edited from [3]. If you had a hard time following, I suggest looking at the parent post for [3], which links to an excellent (pro-Core) overview of the miner centralization issue.

[1] https://xcancel.com/RIPreason/status/1921764767108325772 [2] https://xcancel.com/oomahq/status/1916793928025596338 [3] https://xcancel.com/RIPreason/status/1921693384785420505

It really is unbelievable. I still can't tell if it's ignorance or willful sabotage. It feels like a psyop to me.

You are asking the obvious questions, and that there don't seem to be super-compelling answers should set off alarm bells. Of course, the real answer is that OP_RETURN limits in fact DO hinder spam. For the parent post to claim that "node operators setting a lower limit...do so at their detriment" is incredibly myopic and imo misleading. In fact, when viewed in the context of a spam transaction, the node being forced to redownload the transaction after it has been added to a block, is an anti-spam FEATURE, not a bug (see below).

I invite you to check out this post here (which is pro-Knots):

as well as the parent (which is pro-Core):

and the followup (which is again pro-Knots):

If you have difficulty following the logic, I think this presentation (which is pro-Core), does a good job of explaining the big picture:

And you can read the response (which is pro-Knots):

Unfortunately, the people that most need to hear and understand this message are not getting it.

But this is a very interesting observation – that truly "saving" has not actually been possible, and that as a consequence, everyone has been forced to become an "investor".

I remember reading about Apple issuing massive amounts of debt to fund dividends and buybacks when it was sitting on a huge pile of cash and thinking how stupid and irresponsible this was. It went against what I'd been raised to believe – that debt is bad.

That was before I understood the ramifications of the fed "targeting" 2% inflation – the joke's on me.

The amazing thing is that this idea is what's been taught for decades at universities, and it goes largely unquestioned.

That volatility = risk.

Bitcoin shows that volatility and risk can (and should) be evaluated separately.

Conventional wisdom is that the US dollar, being quite stable, is not risky, and that Bitcoin is highly volatile and therefore risky.

The dollar is indeed stable, but has nearly a one hundred-year track record of consistent inflation because fundamentally, the government can't resist itself. This is beyond "risky"; it's near-certain loss.

Bitcoin is volatile, but fundamentally represents a better (and sane) method of accounting. The best ideas don't always win, but I think Bitcoin has crossed the Rubicon already. If one's time horizon is greater than a few years, Bitcoin does not seem risky at all.

Got it. In that case, why bother to take the time to write such a long reply to them? It sounds like you're trying to convince them of something, but I'm not sure what or why. Depending on what the purpose was, it would affect how I critique your post. But obviously I agree with your overarching point, which is that this article is filled with misleading half-truths.

Another side note – I'm genuinely curious if the author is purposely trying to mislead, or if this is really the way he sees things. Quotes like this:

"Fol­low­ing Hamas’s attack on Israel, more than 100 law­makers from both major polit­ical parties in the US signed a let­ter urging the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to out­line the steps it is tak­ing to mit­ig­ate crypto­cur­ren­cies being used as a means of fin­an­cing ter­ror­ism."

show that we're living in two different realities. He cites "more than 100 lawmakers" as if that should be an impressive statistic, an appeal to authority. But we know these are just a bunch of grifting ignoramuses pursuing the Current Thing.

Thank you!

What's your approach to learning? What would you advise to somebody starting from scratch that wants to contribute to projects like the ones you've worked on?

Very nice, thank you.

Good point. But I'd say it fixes it partially. Ideally, I would still like to see dollars per BTC, and I was wondering if something clever happens when the number of digits expands.

Did you mean to reply to #315637 ?

To be clear, I was asking about the person that sent you the article, not the journalist. Sorry for the confusion.

I'd like to know more about the "non-Bitcoiner" and the context of the discussion. For example, do you think they linked this article to you in good faith? Are they seriously considering purchasing some Bitcoin?

On a side note, the guy's X profile background image is spot-on 😂

Can the clock accommodate seven (or eight 😅) digit prices? What would it look like?

Interesting that the personal wealth milestone is mentioned in dollars ;)

Nope, sorry. The title is misinformation. Precision is important here. The portion shown in the screenshot is about Swan's partners, not Swan itself. In fact, Swan goes on to say:

"Please be advised that depositing directly from, or withdrawing directly to, a mixing wallet may result in the termination of your account with our banking and custodial partners."

In other words, we're not going to try and stop you – but you do so at your own risk, because our partners may cancel you.

You can of course argue that practically speaking, there's no difference. I don't have strong opinions on that. But let the reader decide for themselves.

And here's a relevant tweet: https://twitter.com/BitPaine/status/1723383480715821263

Is there a way to unflag something? I accidentally flagged the wrong comment. Even if it was not possible to undo, it would be nice if I could "undo" by zapping with the same amount of sats I used to flag.