Dashjr’s Bitcoin Hard Fork Clash: Does Immutability’s Future Hang in Balance?

Deliver onyl the rewritten article in HTML format, ready for automatic publishing on my website, without additional comments or text and remove author name.:rnrn A leaked report alleging Dashjr backed a Bitcoin hard fork has reignited debate over immutability, censorship resistance, and who governs the protocol. summary leak alleged Dashjr backed a bitcoin hard fork through a multisignature committee empowered to review and prune blockchain content. Dashjr dismissed the claims as fabricated and stressed that he had never proposed a hard fork or related mechanism. Adam Back criticized the idea as moving straight to censorship without safeguards, while Pledditor questioned its absence from formal channels. The episode revived debate over bitcoin’s role, whether as a purely financial ledger or a platform where some data can be filtered. Dashjr rejects Bitcoin hard fork claims On Sep.25,a report from independent outlet The Rage set off a wave of discussion across the Bitcoin community. The publication claimed to have obtained private messages belonging to Luke Dashjr, the maintainer of Bitcoin Knots, and presented them as evidence that he was backing a hard fork. In Bitcoin’s (BTC) terms, a hard fork is a type of upgrade that creates a new chain of rules, breaking compatibility with the existing network. According to The Rage, Dashjr’s alleged plan centered on the creation of a trusted multisignature committee with authority to retroactively alter the blockchain and review transactions.  The scope of what qualified as “unacceptable” was broad in the leaked messages. It included material universally condemned,such as child abuse imagery,but reportedly extended further into “non-monetary” uses of the blockchain. the Rage also claimed to have video proof authenticating the leak, although no independent verification has yet emerged. The leak gained wide traction as of one line attributed to Dashjr: “either Bitcoin dies or we have to trust someone.” Onc circulated on X, the remark was quickly interpreted by many as a direct challenge to Bitcoin’s founding principle of immutability, the idea that once a transaction is confirmed it becomes an unchangeable part of the ledger. Dashjr rejected the claims outright. In multiple replies on X, he dismissed The Rage’s report as “fake news” and “fabricated nonsense.”  The truth is I have not proposed a hardfork or anything of the sort, and these bad actors are just grasping at straws to slander me and try to undermine my efforts to save Bitcoin again.— Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) September 26, 2025 He stressed that he had never proposed such a plan, writing, “The truth is I have not proposed a hardfork or anything of the sort, and these bad actors are just grasping at straws to slander me.” In other posts he reiterated plainly: “There is no hard fork.” Support also came from within the developer community. Taproot Wizards co-founder Udi Wertheimer described the story as a fake piece and argued that even if the texts were real,they were speculative or presented without context,not evidence of a concrete proposal. i read the luke dashjr hit piece.it’s wrong. basically the entire article is wrong.i’m (obviously) not on luke’s side, but guys this is just a sloppy low quality propaganda piece.first of all: sharing private messages is not cool. for many obvious ethical reasons. but one… pic.twitter.com/pHxrHDxhN0— Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) September 26, 2025 Committee plan outlined in leaked texts The leaked messages allegedly described a framework in which a multisignature committee would be empowered to review blockchain content and decide which categories should be removed.  examples in the messages included child sexual abuse material, inscription activity such as Ordinals, and other forms of data labeled as “spam.” once identified, this content would not be preserved on the chain and would instead be replaced with zero-knowledge proofs.  Zero-knowledge proofs are cryptographic methods that allow verification of a statement without revealing the underlying data. In this case, they would allow nodes to confirm that a transaction remains valid even after its associated content has been pruned. today, every full node stores Bitcoin’s entire history from the genesis block up to the latest block. Each node keeps an identical record, allowing the ledger to remain immutable and independently auditable. The leaked proposal suggested a different setup: nodes could prune flagged content and rely on zero-knowledge proofs to maintain verification continuity.Consensus rules would, in theory, remain mathematically consistent, yet the historical record available to each node would no longer be uniform or complete.  The timing of the leak coincided with debate over Bitcoin Core version 30, which is changing how OP_RETURN and arbitrary data are handled.  OP_RETURN is the field that lets users attach extra data to transactions; it has been widely used for inscriptions tied to Ordinals and similar metadata schemes.  Version 30 removes the long-standing 80-byte default cap in relay and mempool policy, giving node operators more freedom over how much data they accept. that adjustment has reignited arguments over whether Bitcoin should remain a pure monetary ledger or also host broader data. Against that backdrop, the leaked proposal to prune non-monetary content and replace it with zero-knowledge proofs appeared directly connected to those same concerns, making the story especially charged.  Though, no independent verification of the leaked messages or the claimed video proof has emerged, leaving their authenticity in doubt. Adam Back warns of censorship risks The leaked excerpts left important gaps. They did not explain how a proposed committee would be formed, what boundaries would guide its decisions, or how disagreements could be handled.  It was also unclear whether the system was meant to operate only within Bitcoin Knots or if it was intended as a model that could eventually influence Bitcoin Core itself.  The lack of detail made it difficult to judge whether the idea amounted to a real proposal or simply private discussion elevated into something larger. Reactions came quickly. Adam Back, Blockstream’s CEO and a long-time Bitcoin developer, criticized the idea for moving “straight to the censorship tech,” without any discussion of safeguards.  ugh. far worse than i could’ve imagined. skipped past slippery slope arguments, @lukedashjr / knots plan is to jump straight to the censorship tech that myself and @csuwildcat were specifically warning about with legal citations from prior internet cases. https://t.co/lhvGscoXVX— Adam Back (@adam3us) September 2