“Text messages shared with The Rage show that the Knots maintainer is considering a hardfork to implement a trusted multisig committee that can retrospectively alter the blockchain to remove illicit content,” the article states. It was updated on September 25, 2025.
The published chat excerpts show Dashjr exploring a buried-state modification technique intended to deal with the risk that child sexual abuse material (CSAM) might be mined into a block. “I’m trying to come up with mitigation strategies for the risk CSAM gets mined — so my thought is after a block is identified as having CSAM, flag that one tx and use a ZKP for it,” one message reads, followed by: “Technically a hardfork, but since it’s buried, should be safe,” and “Probably would have a multisig sign-off on each ZKP.”
BitMEX Research called the idea “more and more like an attack on Bitcoin’s key censorship resistance characteristics.”
Blockstream CEO Adam Back reacted: “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.”
Abra founder Bill Barhydt warned that “Bitcoin War 2 seems imminent,” adding: “If hard fork rumors are true, I fear my maxi friends have bought into a narrative that could lead to a bait-and-switch by a small faction (e.g., one rogue developer)… Bottom line: Censoring the mempool is a bad idea. Let fee markets do their job.”
JAN3’s Samson Mow urged restraint and a long time-horizon for protocol changes: “There exists a third faction that isn’t Core or Knots. We simply want Bitcoin to be secure, unchanging, and conservative. We believe development should be framed on a centuries-long timescale, with any proposed change approached with utmost care and caution. Primum non nocere.” In a separate message he reassured users: “There’s no need to pick a side… You are the network.”
If implemented, a buried-state rollback ratified by a trusted sign-off—even one paired with ZKPs—would mark a decisive departure from Bitcoin’s consensus model, where reorgs are emergent, permissionless, and economically disincentivized beyond shallow depth. The leaked concept suggests memorializing a special-case pathway to excise data post-confirmation, which critics fear could become a vector for compelled takedowns, politicized censorship, or regulatory capture over time. That risk profile is precisely why some are labeling the proposal an attack on Bitcoin’s “key censorship resistance characteristics.”
As of publication, Dashjr has not posted a public technical specification or BIP for the mechanism described in the leaked messages, and no activation pathway has been formally proposed. But the reaction has been immediate and polarizing.
“No matter what side you stand on in this debate… proposing the implementation of such a decree in the form of a hardfork that would implement a trusted committee with the power to retroactively alter the blockchain goes too far,” L33tz wrote, concluding: “Burning Bitcoin to the ground over JPEGs is not worth it.”
At press time, BTC traded at $109,247.
