- Bitcoin proposal BIP-444 brings one temporary soft fork in discussionone Spam on the blockchain and Data risks e.gu reduce.
- But many are concerned about a threat to decentralization and an uncertain future of open network governance.
Bitcoin developers are currently debating one of the most controversial proposals in years, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 444kurz BIP-444.
The draft, submitted by developer Dathon Ohm on October 24, 2025, outlines a temporary soft fork aimed at eliminating potentially harmful data stored on the blockchain.
A fix to the problem has become necessary as concerns grow that Bitcoin Core 30 enables massive data storage and the blockchain is therefore used for malicious content.
BIP-444 recommends strict limits on the maximum size of certain data types and suggests that new output scripts be limited to a maximum size of 34 bytes, prohibiting excessive bursts of data larger than 256 bytes.
If the soft fork is implemented, it will remain in effect until block 987,424, lasting almost a year. The main intention behind the soft fork is to prevent excessively large or undefined testimonial data that could be misused for spam or malicious operations.
The proponents of the soft fork explainthat it is a necessary one measure acts one the credibility of Bitcoin to maintain, and otherwise there is a risk that he will be responsible for illegal Activities is used .
The problem for operators of Bitcoin nodes
Although the proposal has made headlines for its urgency, it also raises more fundamental questions related to decentralization. The underlying philosophy behind Bitcoin, “Don’t trust, Verify,” requires users to maintain full nodes that verify every transaction.
However, if there is unauthorized data on the blockchain, node managers could find themselves in morally or legally difficult situations.
Dies, so Ohm, be an existential risk to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. Users have the option of either the nodes to “kill” or the prohibited content to save .
BIP-444 aims to this risk to eliminateby requiring enforcement at a level closer to consensus as Guidelines or mining rules.
The developer communityhathowever also warned about it that such restrictions are temporary die Innovationthe homes could . The script tree limitations may prove too restrictive for technologies like BitVM that rely on larger script trees.
However, the proposal acknowledges this limitation and points out that it is only a temporary limitation and not a permanent barrier to innovation.
Two-phase activation framework for BIP-444
The plan sees two steps for activationnamely a proactive stage scheduled for February 2026 and a reactive stage in case before this point in time harmful content appears in the chain .
The latter will involve a reorganization of the chain, essentially ignoring the problematic blocks in order to preserve the legal integrity of Bitcoin.
The whole thing is similar to past Bitcoin incidents, for example, when Bitcoin was affected by the inflation bug in 2010 and in 2013, when There was a split in the Bitcoin chain, both of which were corrected through emergency soft forks.
In this case, however, the risk lies not in financial inaccuracies, but in their impact. BIP-444 can help increase Bitcoin’s longevity by discouraging its abuse, even if it temporarily limits its flexibility.
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