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@ Itamar Peretz
2025-05-24 14:18:08
Blocks stay at 4 MB, but during quiet fee windows, big transactions still blast across the network, and every node must download and validate those bytes before they hit a block. The UTXO set is already 12 GB—enough to push a Pi onto slow disk seeks—so a steady drip of bulk data keeps nudging the hardware bar up. A small OP_RETURN cap is just a speed bump: it makes anyone storing non-monetary data split it into chunks or pay more, while each node can relay or ignore it. The current Core PR worries people because it raises the default cap a hundred-fold and removes the setting that lets operators keep a lower limit. I’d rather keep a modest ceiling and the knob; that lets art still pay its way, shields hobby nodes from legal risk (see Matzutt 2018 on CSA data in Bitcoin), and leaves Bitcoin’s main job—sound money—uncluttered.