Political tensions and Bitcoin Core v30 threaten to disconnect 3.000 nodes

• Bitcoin Core vs. Bitcoin Knots conflict deepens divide
• Removing OP_RETURN limit generates network of isolated nodes
• Bitcoin faces fragmentation with the arrival of v30

Bitcoin is facing a moment of technical and political tension with the imminent arrival of version 30 of the Bitcoin Core client, scheduled for October. The most controversial change is the removal of the old 80-byte limit for OP_RETURN fields, which has reignited a technical debate that remember the block size disputes experienced in 2017.

🚨 Bitcoin Cold War Alert 🚨

Nearly 3,000 Bitcoin nodes at risk as policy tensions escalate ahead of the new #BitcoinCore release. ⚠️

A critical moment for the network's future. 🔥 #cryptonews # Bitcoin #BTC #Blockchain #BitcoinCore #Decentralization pic.twitter.com/rjlcc5eJcb

— Crypto News Hunters 🎯 (@CryptoNewsHntrs) June 24, 2025

This change, implemented by Antoine Poinsot, caused a backlash among developers and node operators. In response, emerged an auto-ban script published on GitHub that isolates nodes running Bitcoin Knots — an alternative to Core that opposes the new relay policy. It is estimated that nearly 3.000 publicly accessible nodes, or about 13% of the network, could be affected.

The main criticism comes from developers like Luke Dashjr, who called the removal of the limit “complete insanity.” The OP_RETURN field, originally used for simple data entries, has been exploited by projects like BRC-20 and Ordinals tokens, congesting the network with high-volume, high-fee transactions.

The current split does not involve consensus rules, but it directly affects the relay policy and how data propagates between nodes in the network. This influences which transactions miners see first and therefore which are prioritized for inclusion in blocks.

The situation has become even more polarized with the spread of tools like btc-magic-guard, which uses iptables to block divergent clients. While the network still operates on shared consensus rules, the fragmentation of the relay infrastructure could compromise on-chain analytics, block propagation, and network efficiency.

Major miners like Foundry, F2Pool, and Binance Pool have yet to comment on their relay policy, leaving it unclear whether they will follow Core v30 or adopt their own policies. Silent resistance could make certain transactions less efficient or even economically unviable.

With Knots’ node count growing and an upgrade scheduled for the coming months, the risk of functional segregation between implementations becomes increasingly relevant for the cryptocurrency ecosystem.