Did Luke Dashjr really plan a Bitcoin hard fork?

Leaked text messages about Knots leader Luke Dashjr’s alleged plan for a Bitcoin hard fork sparked a media frenzy within the Bitcoin community late yesterday afternoon.

Tech outlet TheRage reported that Dashjr would consider temporarily hardforking the blockchain, if necessary, to protect node operators from CSAM that might be easier to relay around the Bitcoin network after Core version 30 (v30) changes mempool defaults.

However, Dashjr, who runs Knots, an offshoot of the world’s dominant Bitcoin node software, Bitcoin Core, has vehemently denied these claims.

Reactions to Dashjr’s alleged plan were immediate. However, despite TheRage’s reporting, it wasn’t independently clear whether Dashjr actually advocates for any hard fork at all.

Shortly before TheRage’s article, Dashjr commented on the possibility of a hard fork in typically ambiguous terms. “If we have community support, no fork is necessary. If we don’t, no fork is possible,” he posted.

Senior Bitcoin developer Adam Back responded to the article, claiming he’d “heard unrelated from several contacts that OCEAN, the mining pool founded by Dashjr, was contacting pools with legal theories to try push their corporate counsel into moderating content.

“That connects with and looks much worse in context of leaked, Luke Dashjr instant messages in this article.”

After TheRage’s story, Dashjrclaimed that Back’s quote-tweet was “parroting more lies again.”

He’s previously claimed that Back was “blatantly lying through his teeth at this point” and has repeatedly claimed Back lies about him.

Dashjr also called someone else a liar who claimed he was considering a hard fork to retroactively remove data from the Bitcoin blockchain.

‘There is no hard fork’

Dashjr repeatedly called the overall intent of TheRage’s article false. “There is no hardfork,” he stated simply.

In response to a question from a Knots user about whether the article was “real,” he responded, “No, it’s not real.”

Elsewhere, he claimed “It is a lie,” and on numerous occasions, called it “fake news.”

He claimed elsewhere that, “The only ones proposing hardforks are Core30 apologists.”

Bitcoin Core’s controversial October update to version 30 will introduce an accommodative change to OP_RETURN mempool defaults that will ease arbitrary data storage.

Many Knots node operators, including its lead developer, Dashjr, oppose Core v30.

Read more: Knots leader says Bitcoin Core v30 could host illegal adult content

Protos reached out to Dashjr to confirm the authenticity of the text messages and whether or not he would advocate for a hard fork, but didn’t receive a response prior to publication time.

Dashjr did, however, respond directly to TheRage, once again calling “fake news for this one” and claiming, “they are lying.”

Screenshots don’t prove Dashjr plans to hard fork

The Rage has said that the screenshots’ authenticity has been verified via video proof.

However, many on social media weren’t too sure.

“I can’t believe how stupid the people are running with this,” said one skeptic.

When TheRage itself reached out to Dashjr for comment, he replied, “You’re writing an article on completely unfounded lies?”

It’s worth noting that TheRage withheld the full context of the conversations, highlighting only brief segments of long message threads.

The messages don’t reference any actual hard fork, only thought experiments about theoretical future scenarios.

Moreover, Dashjr is famous for idiosyncratic speech and strict definitions of computer terms such that a casual reading of his text messages by a global audience would not likely convey his actual meanings that he originally intended only for a single recipient.