Let’s have a look at two issues that Bitcoin Knots customers declare to be proponents of and champions for of their campaign in opposition to Bitcoin Core: 

• Mining decentralization
• Bitcoin’s use as cash

They declare to struggle for mining decentralization, with OCEAN mining pool held out as a major instance of this. OCEAN’s DATUM protocol is ostensibly designed to additional mining decentralization, particularly the precise template development course of that decides what transactions go right into a block. 

Additionally they declare to struggle for Bitcoin’s use as a financial community, i.e. a community that facilitates the transmission of bitcoin in economics transactions, making certain safety for these transactions. 

These are each extremely necessary objectives. Bitcoin’s mining community remaining decentralized is completely essential in an effort to preserve its censorship resistance. A transparent majority of miners should exist and function in a state free from the potential for coercion from the state (or every other get together) to interact in censorship. With out present on this state, a easy majority of miners coerced in such a style can be able to perpetually stopping any transaction from confirming within the blockchain, fully undermining Bitcoin’s core worth proposition. 

Scaling Bitcoin’s use as cash can also be extremely necessary. The one mechanisms to transact with bitcoin in a censorship resistant style are ones which might be actually anchored to the blockchain itself in a way the place the tip consumer can on their very own implement possession of their present steadiness of bitcoin. 

Each of this stuff are completely needed for Bitcoin to meaningfully contribute to any constructive change on the planet. 

So let’s have a look at what they declare to face for versus what they’re really doing. 

Actions Versus Phrases

So firstly, builders have been engaged on a protocol referred to as Stratum v2, a substitute for the present Stratum v1 protocol miners use to work together with mining swimming pools. This has been a large undertaking, all fully open supply, to permit particular person miners to pick transactions which might be included in blocks themselves versus the pool operator (the pool nonetheless controls payouts). 

Block’s new Proto mining rig helps Stratum v2, Braiins Pool and DMND Pool have built-in help. 

What did OCEAN (run by the most important Knots supporters) do to help Stratum v2? Nothing. They created their very own proprietary various DATUM (they’ve pledged to open supply all the pieces in future however haven’t but completed so). In each options the pool operator is able to rejecting proposed blocks from particular person miners, which would depart the miner persevering with to do work they don’t seem to be getting paid for. Stratum v2 helps instantly switching to a different pool in such a case to make sure the miner continues getting paid, OCEAN doesn’t. It merely defaults to solomining. 

Provided that it’s not even open sourced but, no different pool can undertake it. It’s basically a vendor lockin for OCEAN pool, who can nonetheless reject any template a miner proposes, with no technique to trivially choose out if a miner’s block template is rejected and change to a different pool. 

To high it off, the observe of filtering transactions slows down the propagation of blocks throughout the community. When a miner finds a block, they don’t relay the entire block, they relay the header with a compressed “record” of all of the transactions in it for a node to reconstruct and confirm the block with the transactions of their mempool. When nodes should not have these transactions, it takes longer for them to fetch them from friends, validate the block, and relay it onward.

This disproportionately hurts smaller miners. If a big pool has a block orphaned due to this, i.e. one other miner finds a block earlier than the opposite one propagates throughout the community, that bigger miner has a really excessive likelihood of discovering the following block constructing on their orphan, thus “saving it” to be included within the blockchain. 

Smaller miners should not have these excessive odds of discovering the following block on this state of affairs. This disadvantages them, making the very best charge paying transactions one thing that might really lose them cash, versus bigger miners who will probably discover the following block and never have their first one orphaned. 

In a number of methods OCEAN (and Knots supporters) are actively harming mining decentralization whereas proclaiming themselves defenders of it. 

Now let’s have a look at using Bitcoin as cash. Ephemeral anchors are an optimization to make Lightning perform extra effectively, for a deeper rationalization of them you’ll be able to learn this, however the necessary level is they permit Lightning customers to be rather more environment friendly with charges they pay to shut channels on-chain. 

The most recent launch of Knots by default filters these transactions, and won’t relay them throughout the community. When a Lightning consumer has to non-cooperatively shut, they’re doing so in an effort to shield their funds. Lightning implementations are all in several phases of shifting over to utilizing them. Knots actively makes an attempt to stop these transactions relaying to miners. 

How does that assist advance using Bitcoin as cash? Once more, similar to with mining decentralization, they act in a exact opposite method than what they are saying. Citrea is one more instance, a Bitcoin Layer 2 designed to scale monetary transactions. The Knots OP_RETURN filter won’t relay the transactions wanted to implement right operation of the Layer 2. 

What They Do Issues, Not What They Say

Knots supporters proclaim themselves defenders of Bitcoin, right here to make sure it stays a decentralized censorship resistant cash. However their actions push in direction of the precise reverse purpose. 

The issues they do to “champion” mining decentralization really create dynamics that worsen its centralization. 

Whereas proclaiming Bitcoin is cash, and defending its use as such their chief purpose, the software program they launch and run actively undermines a number of Layer 2s whose complete goal is to scale Bitcoin’s use as cash. 

They’re actually totally engaged in a marketing campaign with the tip purpose of stopping sure sorts of Bitcoin transactions from being made, whereas proclaiming themselves defenders of Bitcoin. 

On the finish of the day, that is an open community, and folks can run no matter software program they need to work together with that open community. That could be a essential and necessary side of Bitcoin. This isn’t about software program, that is about folks. 

That is in regards to the acknowledged objectives, the acknowledged values of individuals on this area, being the exact opposite of the actions they have interaction in. I hope that Bitcoiners are sensible sufficient to ultimately see the Orwellian newspeak that has been dominating the whole dispute round Bitcoin Core and Knots over the previous couple of years. 

“The get together advised you to reject the proof of your eyes and ears. It was their last, most important command.”