If you are new in Bitcoin or the only SAT you have in an ETF or in a centralized exchange, they will forgive you for not knowing about the knots of Core vs and the entire Op_return saga. But if some cycles have resisted, he snuggled like a champion, and he is still scratching his head, it is time for your eyes to open: the 2025 ‘Wars’ spam’ carry all the characteristics of the block size wars almost a decade earlier, and it is getting ugly fast.
Like block size wars, spam wars imply a fundamental ideological clash on the central principles of Bitcoin, particularly scale versus decentralization, and if prioritizing network capacity and the ease of use on a simpler and more permission protocol.
Bitcoin Core supporters, the implementation of long -standing reference and Bitcoin knots, an increasingly popular alternative maintained by the developer and the CTO in Ocean Mining, Luke Dashjr, disagree, and the gloves are coming out.
Core vs Knots, what is happening?
In the center of the controversy is the planned elimination of Bitcoin Core of the limit of 80 bytes in the Op_return data in its next version of V30, scheduled for October 2025.
This technical change, aimed at increasing flexibility and unlocking new use cases to integrate data into the bitcoin block chain, is fiercely opposite by the sponsors of the knots, who argue that they transform the main network into a landfill for non -financial transactions and spam.
The central developers, such as Peter Todd and Jameson LOPP, affirm that change admits a broader innovation, such as digital art and documents verification. They support everyone’s right to use the Bitcoin block chain as they feel and have no governance or moral. LOPP published:
“I really detest politics. Therefore, I have little patience for those who try to impose traditional governance models to Bitcoin. If you don’t like anarchy, you are free to leave.”
The supporters of the knots such as Samson Mow and Luke Dashjr warn that the update runs the risk of swelling the block chain, undermining Bitcoin’s neutrality and weakening their monetary purpose. Dashjr warned:
“What do you think will happen now that Core is opening the gates to the spam and essentially supporting it?
Net philosophy and neutrality
The Core vs Knots dispute highlights the deepest ideological cracks on the Bitcoin function. Should Bitcoin continue to be a strictly monetary settlement layer, or can it evolve to meet the most experimental data needs in the chain, provided that rates are paid?
The apparent Core policy changes are seen by some as giving up their control role, allowing any case of use if the user pays. Nodes supporters, however, emphasize control with characteristics such as Spama protection and argue that the elimination of data limits could centralize power and threaten scalability.
Miners and retransmission service operators play a fundamental role, determining what types of transactions end in blocks and how the network responds to divergent software preferences. Nodes have also migrated more and more to knots: their participation of the network doubled for six weeks in May-June of 2025, and has now reached the ~ 17% of all Bitcoins nodes, a sign of growing protest and possible fragmentation before the launch of Core V30.
Where do you go?
While there is still no hard bifurcation, assembly tensions and the possibility that different software customers reject blocks or transactions evoke memories of the Segwit 2017 division.
The Core vs Knots scenario also raises another fundamental problem that surrounds the true decentralization of the Bitcoin network: how many of Bitcoin followers execute their own node? Dashjr posted:
“Bitcoin’s greatest threat to survival is that very few people are using a complete node. For Bitcoin to work, at least 85% of the economic activity must do so.”
With technical, political and philosophical bets in the game, the launch of CORE V30 of October can define the next era of the development of Bitcoin and the decentralized consensus, determining whether the diversity in the software serves the resistance of Bitcoin or causes an absolute chain division.
