Bitcoin Core Developers Face Criticism Over Update That May Enable Spam Transactions

Jason Hughes, VP at the well-known mining pool OCEAN, has raised serious concerns about Bitcoin Core’s next update. The proposed changes, which alter how transactions are relayed through the network, may — in Hughes’s words — “bring down the whole system” if their long-term effects are not carefully addressed.

This stems from a proposal by Bitcoin developer Peter Todd. The idea is to ease restrictions within the transaction relay policy — the mechanism that guides which transactions are forwarded across nodes. Todd suggests enabling the unfiltered relay of transactions carrying arbitrary data, thereby expanding what kinds of content can be distributed on the Bitcoin network. 

As it stands, Bitcoin only truly favors the basics. Transactions must pass through narrow gates, where priority is reserved for the traditional kind: a value sent, an address marked, a signature applied. Simplicity ensures speed — and control.

Jason Hughes expressed concern that altering the transaction relay rules might place excessive load on the network, resulting in slower performance across nodes. He emphasized that the update would allow large quantities of external, non-financial information to be written to the blockchain — data that serves no role in validating payments.

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According to Hughes, such a change would have several negative outcomes:

• The mempool could become overloaded with non-financial transactions,
• Full nodes would face greater processing burdens,
• And there may be renewed pressure to expand block sizes to accommodate the extra data.

To Hughes, the update doesn’t just tweak Bitcoin — it rewrites its ethos. Where Satoshi envisioned a minimalist protocol for peer-to-peer finance, this path risks turning the chain into a repository for noise.

I'm out of energy on this. Bitcoin Core is lost. It's one thing to fail to act in the face of an attack on the network. It's another to embrace it and swing the doors wide open for it,

Jason Hughes expresses.

As a safer alternative, he proposed using Bitcoin Knots, a fork by Luke Dashjr that enforces tighter relay restrictions and limits the transmission of unnecessary data. Hughes called on leading mining pools like AntPool and ViaBTC to resist upgrading to the new Bitcoin Core release, citing concerns over long-term network sustainability.

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The issue of spam transactions is not unique to Bitcoin — it affects Ethereum and other blockchain ecosystems as well. Peter Todd acknowledged that Bitcoin Knots, despite its stricter relay policies, is still vulnerable to spam embedded directly in blocks.

In contrast, fellow Bitcoin developer Antoine Poinsot argues that the perceived threat is largely theoretical, and doesn’t yet pose a significant real-world concern.

Bitcoin Core continues to serve as the main software client for the Bitcoin network, used by nearly all nodes and mining operations to verify transactions and blocks. As of the latest measurements, 98.37% of Bitcoin nodes rely on Bitcoin Core, making it not just a standard, but a dominant force. Because of this, any update to Core — if accepted by miners — could influence the entire blockchain’s performance and ruleset.

Advocates for stronger precautions stress the importance of prevention over reaction — tackling issues before they escalate into network-wide problems.

To that end, Bitcoin Core developers are planning further community discussions, and may also initiate a testnet deployment to model the potential outcomes of the upgrade in a controlled setting. 

The final verdict on the proposed changes could carry long-term implications: it may determine whether Bitcoin continues to function as a dedicated financial asset for storing value, or transitions into a more broadly defined tool with competing use cases.

That second scenario is one that Bitcoin maximalists deeply fear.

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