Unchained: Big Ideas From The Worlds Of Blockchain And Cryptocurrency

On Monday, bitcoin hit a new all-time high of over $126,000, but Bitcoin’s biggest fight right now isn’t about price; it’s about purpose.  Since 2023, image files and meme tokens have clogged the network, spiking fees and making everyday payments expensive. Bitcoin Core wants to lift an 80-byte data limit that's existed since 2014. Bitcoin Knots disagrees — and has built code to enforce a different limit. Should Bitcoin stay a payments network, or evolve into a platform that stores everything from NFTs to memecoins to experimental layer 2 protocols? Blockstream CEO Adam Back and Bitcoin and Lightning developer Chris Guida debate whether removing limits on OP_RETURN protects Bitcoin from what they call “spam,” or opens the floodgates to it. Plus: the real lesson from 2014 when Vitalik Buterin left Bitcoin, why miners can bypass any filter by renting hash rate, and whether 22% of nodes running different code actually matters in a decentralized network. Thank you to our sponsors! Mantle Aptos