Bitcoin community: Disagreement over Saylor’s message

Michael Saylor, co-founder and chairman of Strategy, is known for his weighty opinions in the world of Bitcoin enthusiasts. Recently, however, he caused confusion when he reposted a remarkable video clip from his appearance on "The Peter McCormack Show" on platform X. In this one-year retrospective of his comments, Saylor warned of possible negative impacts from changes to the Bitcoin protocol. Particularly explosive: A call at the end of the video, which was never publicly attributed to Saylor himself, was directed at Bitcoin node operators who want to avoid changes to the alternative Bitcoin Core version 30. Bitcoin Core developers had already agreed in June on a change to increase the amount of data storable in OP_RETURN from 80 to 100,000 bytes. This change divides the community: supporters see it as an opportunity for more complex applications and an end to currently necessary workarounds. Critics fear network overloads or even the storage of problematic content. Meanwhile, Saylor is portrayed by supporters of the Bitcoin Knots faction as a backer of their cause, although his true stance remains uncertain. In some ways, the debate is reminiscent of the controversies surrounding Ordinals, a type of Bitcoin-based NFTs, which briefly came into focus in 2023. For some, this process symbolized innovation, while others insisted on Bitcoin's focused role as a monetary medium. Saylor has not publicly endorsed either software variant so far. Indirectly, he defended the debate on Ordinals with regard to the potential for long-term benefits for miners and greater Bitcoin acceptance. This time, however, he himself seems caught between fronts: removing the post could be interpreted as taking sides. Nonetheless, the question remains whether Saylor had watched the pro-Knots statement to the end when he shared the video.