To clarify my intent: I’m not arguing that larger OP_RETURN is “good” or “bad.” I’m interested in whether expanding expressive surface area changes the kind of coordination burden Bitcoin requires.
Szabo’s point about minimizing the need for negotiation resonates with me. And if Bitcoin’s blockspace starts carrying more socially or legally charged data, it feels like the social layer may have to do more interpretation instead of letting the system be permissionless money…leading to a tower of babble type of failure.
But maybe this worry is overblown — maybe fee-market neutrality is sufficient to maintain coherence and neutrality.
Genuinely curious how others analyze the tradeoff:
• Is blockspace policy just economics,
• or does it also define the shared mental model of what Bitcoin may be to different people?
I’ve been following the discussion around Bitcoin Core v0.30 and the increased OP_RETURN relay size (~80 bytes → ~100 KB), along with the growing interest in Bitcoin Knots’ more conservative policy stance.
At first the debate looked like a simple question of:
• Should Bitcoin block space be “money-only,”
or
• Should it allow arbitrary data as long as fees are paid?
But after hearing from both sides, I’m wondering if this debate is actually about something deeper than either side is presenting.
Nick Szabo wrote in Money, Blockchains, and Social Scalability (2017):
Social scalability is the ability of a system to support widespread human cooperation while minimizing the need for trust, negotiation, and discretionary judgment.
Bitcoin’s original design deliberately limited expressiveness and also used a slow database with inefficient network protocols…all in order to maximize social scalability — i.e., fewer reasons to argue about over globally.
So here’s the question I’m wrestling with:
Does expanding OP_RETURN and encouraging more arbitrary data use widen Bitcoin’s “sphere of purpose” in a way that reduces its social scalability?
Put differently:
There seem to be two interpretations of what expanding OP_RETURN implies, and both have tradeoffs:
• One interpretation is that a fee-based, permissionless market for block space keeps Bitcoin maximally neutral. If someone is willing to pay, that is the filtering mechanism (along with node policies).
This preserves the principle that Bitcoin does not distinguish “good” vs. “bad” data or actors.
• The other interpretation is that broadening acceptable on-chain content expands the legal and social attack surface.
Since block space is permissionless, anyone — including adversarial or politically motivated actors — can embed material intended to provoke regulatory pressure or create social fracture.
I’m not taking a side — I’m trying to figure out what the right frame of analysis is.
Questions for the community:
1. Is purpose drift a real threat to Bitcoin’s social scalability as Nick’s blog suggests?
2. Can fee-market neutrality alone preserve coherence of purpose?
3. Has any decentralized system successfully stayed socially scalable while expanding its expressive surface area? BCH forked to BSV and ETC forked to ETH.
I’d appreciate high-signal perspectives — especially from those who’ve worked in:
• distributed systems/security,
• protocol governance,
• or followed previous “purpose shift” debates in open networks.
Szabo’s point about minimizing the need for negotiation resonates with me. And if Bitcoin’s blockspace starts carrying more socially or legally charged data, it feels like the social layer may have to do more interpretation instead of letting the system be permissionless money…leading to a tower of babble type of failure.
But maybe this worry is overblown — maybe fee-market neutrality is sufficient to maintain coherence and neutrality.
Genuinely curious how others analyze the tradeoff: • Is blockspace policy just economics, • or does it also define the shared mental model of what Bitcoin may be to different people?
I’ve been following the discussion around Bitcoin Core v0.30 and the increased OP_RETURN relay size (~80 bytes → ~100 KB), along with the growing interest in Bitcoin Knots’ more conservative policy stance.
At first the debate looked like a simple question of: • Should Bitcoin block space be “money-only,” or • Should it allow arbitrary data as long as fees are paid?
But after hearing from both sides, I’m wondering if this debate is actually about something deeper than either side is presenting.
Nick Szabo wrote in Money, Blockchains, and Social Scalability (2017):
Social scalability is the ability of a system to support widespread human cooperation while minimizing the need for trust, negotiation, and discretionary judgment.
Bitcoin’s original design deliberately limited expressiveness and also used a slow database with inefficient network protocols…all in order to maximize social scalability — i.e., fewer reasons to argue about over globally.
So here’s the question I’m wrestling with:
Does expanding OP_RETURN and encouraging more arbitrary data use widen Bitcoin’s “sphere of purpose” in a way that reduces its social scalability?
Put differently: There seem to be two interpretations of what expanding OP_RETURN implies, and both have tradeoffs: • One interpretation is that a fee-based, permissionless market for block space keeps Bitcoin maximally neutral. If someone is willing to pay, that is the filtering mechanism (along with node policies).
This preserves the principle that Bitcoin does not distinguish “good” vs. “bad” data or actors. • The other interpretation is that broadening acceptable on-chain content expands the legal and social attack surface.
Since block space is permissionless, anyone — including adversarial or politically motivated actors — can embed material intended to provoke regulatory pressure or create social fracture.
I’m not taking a side — I’m trying to figure out what the right frame of analysis is.
Questions for the community: 1. Is purpose drift a real threat to Bitcoin’s social scalability as Nick’s blog suggests? 2. Can fee-market neutrality alone preserve coherence of purpose? 3. Has any decentralized system successfully stayed socially scalable while expanding its expressive surface area? BCH forked to BSV and ETC forked to ETH.
I’d appreciate high-signal perspectives — especially from those who’ve worked in: • distributed systems/security, • protocol governance, • or followed previous “purpose shift” debates in open networks.
Thanks for reading.