Satoshi comments on arbitrary data shows how old the OP_RETURN debate is

The Bitcoin community is split over Bitcoin Core v30’s plan to drop the 80-byte OP_RETURN limit, a dispute started by Nakamoto’s arbitrary data restrictions.

The Bitcoin community is split over Bitcoin Core developers’ decision to remove a limit on arbitrary data stored in transactions, a move that traces back to a debate first raised by Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010.

Bitcoin Core v30’s expected release next month will remove the 80-byte cap on OP_RETURN, an opcode used for saving arbitrary data (any non-financial data) onchain. The decision has proved controversial, with some accusing developers of bowing to corporate influence and others arguing that arbitrary data storage is outside Bitcoin’s intended scope.

However, this debate is much older than OP_RETURN itself, which was introduced in Bitcoin Core 0.9.0 in March 2014. Back in 2010, when Bitcoin (BTC) was barely a year old, the protocol’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, sparked the same debate by introducing checks to ensure that transaction data complied with the intended standards.

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