Rob Hamilton breaks down BIP 444, the controversial soft fork proposal to limit OP_RETURN outputs and remove inscriptions. Legal pressure on mining pools, hashrate drama, and why this fork will likely fail.

Rob Hamilton from AnchorWatch joins us to talk about the explosive BIP 444 proposal that could fork Bitcoin. We break down PortlandHodl's original 520-byte output limit idea, LukeDashjr's controversial technique to ban inscriptions, and the legal pressure being applied to mining pools. Rob explains why this fork will likely fail, what happens to your Bitcoin if it succeeds, and why opponents finally admitted a consensus change was needed all along.

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**Notes:**

• BIP 444 limits outputs to 520 bytes max

• OP_RETURN reduced from current to 84 bytes

• F2Pool controls 12% hash rate, opposes fork

• Mining pool switching costs nearly nothing

• Fork creates 2 coins: pure vs unholy Bitcoin

• Legal pressure applied to multiple pools

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

01:55 Portland HODL's proposal

04:48 PR 444 (is dumb)

08:22 Author of the PR: Dathon Ohm

09:45 Knots & Ocean inner circle

10:45 LEGAL & MORAL authorities! Oh my!

14:52 Assume 444 was merged, wat do?

21:55 Stamps maximalism! One jpg to rule them all!

28:47 Possible paths forward

31:09 What happens next?

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