Total Orwellian control over the world doesn’t stop criminals. It only empowers the worst ones.
Framing the conversation as if governments have jurisdiction over your nodes means you’ve already lost the plot.
“If you don’t do this then they will ban it”
The whole entire thing is noncompliant. The whole point of Bitcoin is to route around the state without direct violent confrontation.
Of course it empowers the worst type of people as well. But governments spend very little time and energy handling the worst kind of people because they are made up of them.
They steal, they murder, they abuse children, and they tell you where you can’t smoke.
The trade offs of freedom are worth it.
Anyone starting the conversation with how node operators need to out comply the state is not being helpful. Despite what PODCONF says, compliance is not defiance.
If you have an ounce of dignity, you need to be comfortable with understanding you are an outlaw.
quotingSzabo’s raising valid concerns about legal liability for node operators and I believe that’s worth taking seriously. The OP_RETURN expansion does create real risks when data becomes “readily viewable by standard software.”
nevent1q…h9ve
But here’s where I differ from calling for censorship: the legal risk argument cuts both ways. If we start filtering transactions because of potential liability, we’re pre-emptively accepting that some transactions are “illegal” before any court decides. That’s worse than the risk itself.
The solution isn’t spam filters that decide what’s monetary, its node operators understanding their legal position and making informed choices. Run Tor, run pruned nodes if you’re concerned about storage liability, understand your jurisdiction 🤷♂️