What Bitcoin Did Is BIP444 An Attack on Bitcoin? | Rob Hamilton
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Nov 14, 2025 
Rob Hamilton, co-founder and CEO of Anchor Watch, dives deep into the contentious BIP-444 proposal aimed at blocking non-monetary data in Bitcoin. He discusses the potential changes to consensus rules and the risks of chain splits and reorgs. Rob provides insights into miner behavior under fee pressure and the economic implications of activated forks. He argues the unlikelihood of UASF success due to lack of miner support and highlights the importance of futures markets in determining the outcome. Additionally, he shares his thoughts on collaborative custody and community dynamics.
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Filters Lose When Economics Push Back
- Consensus rules, not node filters, ultimately determine what transactions are valid on Bitcoin.
- Economic demand and miner incentives can defeat relay filters when miners profit from including low-fee or data-heavy transactions.
Scope Of The Proposed Rule Changes
- BIP444 aims to forbid many on-chain data paths including opreturns, taproot annex and unspecified tap versions.
- The proposal would also disable opcodes used for upgrades, halting certain future script additions for the activation period.
Soft Forks Can Still Freeze Funds
- A soft fork that invalidates currently used script constructions can freeze funds for users who relied on them.
- Even with a one-time spend exemption, typical change outputs or wallet patterns can leave large balances unusable for the activation period.