Leonidas, a prominent Bitcoin Ordinals community figure and host of The Ordinal Show, has issued an open letter threatening to fund a fork of Bitcoin Core if developers attempt to censor Ordinals and Runes transactions. The threat escalates tensions within the Bitcoin community regarding the blockchain's fundamental purpose and comes ahead of the controversial Bitcoin Core v30 upgrade scheduled for October 2025.
The debate centers on whether Bitcoin should prioritize peer-to-peer financial transactions or allow data-heavy transactions like Ordinals and Runes, which can carry images, videos, and documents. Critics including Blockstream CEO Adam Back, Ocean Mining's Luke Dashjr, and Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter argue these transactions constitute "spam" that clogs the network, raises fees, and displaces legitimate financial activity. Back estimates 105 million JPEGs now exist on-chain, with average inscription costs of $8 each.
Leonidas counters that Ordinals and Runes have generated over $500 million in transaction fees since 2023, providing crucial security as mining subsidies decrease through halvings. He claims support from miners controlling more than 50% of Bitcoin's hash rate and over twenty Bitcoin startups. However, Ordinals revenue has declined significantly from a peak of $9.99 million in December 2023 to approximately $3,000 by August 2025, indicating seasonal volatility.
The upcoming Bitcoin Core v30 upgrade will remove the 80-byte OP_RETURN limit, potentially allowing data payloads approaching 4MB per transaction. This technical change would enable multiple OP_RETURN outputs per transaction and remove user configuration controls over data limits. Critics warn this could increase blockchain bloat, node resource requirements, and reduce decentralization by raising barriers for new node operators.
Leonidas warns that policy tightening would prompt the "$DOG Army" to develop an open-source Bitcoin Core fork stripping policy rules while maintaining consensus requirements. This threat echoes previous Bitcoin conflicts like the 2017 block size wars that resulted in forks like Bitcoin Cash. The philosophical divide pits those who view Bitcoin as a neutral base layer for diverse applications against purists who believe it should focus exclusively on financial transactions.