Strategy's Saylor Bets on Ossification: Changes to Bitcoin Must Be Viewed as a 'Threat'

Bitcoin OP_RETURN Changes Must Be Seen as a Threat, Strategy’s Saylor States

While hidden to investors and people in the investing world, the bitcoin community is facing an impasse regarding recent node software modification proposals. While some support lifting the OP_RETURN limits to allow more data to be embedded directly on the Bitcoin blockchain, others are wary about the implications of these changes for the network.

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy, the company holding over 630,000 BTC, had been quiet on the issue. Now, Saylor broke his silence by warning about the dangers of changing the protocol, stressing that he believes modifications might be pernicious for the future of Bitcoin.

Reminiscing over the blocksize war and how it resulted in forks that failed, Saylor stated:

Anybody that proposes to change the protocol has to be viewed as a threat to the entire community.

In addition, he declared that the inflammatory reaction in opposition to these changes should be seen as healthy, as he assesses that any third-order protocol change might escalate to become something far more relevant.

Saylor explained that developers with good intentions wishing to upgrade the protocol were a real risk to bitcoin. “If I want to destroy Bitcoin, I would just fund infinite developers who are very talented and tell them to make it better, you know, because then they would do something,” he stressed.

“I think we should be extremely cautious about improving the protocol or anything that looks like an improvement to the protocol, because the lack of a feature is the feature,” he concluded.

Saylor’s opinions, which have sometimes been controversial coming from the corporate world, signal a preference for protocol ossification, limiting the changes made to Bitcoin due to its value as an investment asset. Nonetheless, changes to fix bugs, protect the protocol, or “make it compatible” would still be acceptable.