The founder of Bitcoin Ordinals threatens to fork Bitcoin Core

The developer of Bitcoin Ordinals, Leonidas, warns that he is ready to fund an open-source fork of Bitcoin Core if developers proceed to censor Bitcoin Runes transactions, Ordinals, or any type of non-financial transactions on the network.

In an open letter to the community, the founder of Ordinals and host of The Ordinal Show spoke out about the growing divide in the Bitcoin ecosystem. The debate currently centers on whether node validators should prioritize processing peer-to-peer transactions and eliminate large uploads such as images, videos, or documents – which many criticize as "garbage."

According to Leonidas, tightening policies or censoring Ordinals and Runes transactions will create a "dangerous precedent" and force him to take "decisive action."

He stated that the DOG Army community is ready to fund a fork of Bitcoin Core with most of the policy rules removed, so that thousands of people can operate together to affirm that Bitcoin must maintain its anti-censorship nature.

This move comes after Blockstream CEO Adam Back stated that such transactions are "garbage" and have no place in the blockchain. This viewpoint is also supported by Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter and Ocean Mining founder Luke Dashjr.

Bitcoin Knots emerge as an alternative option

Meanwhile, Bitcoin Knots – an alternative client to Bitcoin Core – has grown rapidly, from 67 nodes in March 2024 to over 4,380 nodes currently, accounting for more than 18% of the network.

This popularity comes just before the release of Bitcoin Core version v30 on October 30, which will eliminate the 80-byte OP_RETURN limit and allow for the storage of larger multimedia data. Leonidas is concerned that this update could be reversed by the opposing faction.

He emphasized that the Ordinals and Runes ecosystem has contributed over 500 million USD in transaction fees, directly strengthening the security of Bitcoin – an increasingly important factor as the block reward halves every four years. Leonidas stated that he has discussed with miners controlling more than half of the network's hashrate, and they all affirmed that they would accept any transactions as long as the fees are competitive.

However, fees from Ordinals are still seasonal. Data from Dune Analytics shows that on August 31, miners only earned $3,060 in fees from Ordinals—much lower than the record of $9.99 million achieved on December 16, 2023. As of now, there has not been a single day in 2025 where revenue from Ordinals exceeded $1 million, indicating that the utilization of blockspace has decreased significantly.

Bitcoin search volume drops sharply in the US

At the same time, Google Trends data shows that searches for the keyword "Bitcoin" in the US have fallen to their lowest level in 11 months, coinciding with a historic peak in gold prices. This development raises concerns about the potential for capital to shift from gold to Bitcoin.

Since the beginning of 2025, gold has increased by 38% while Bitcoin has only recorded a 18% increase. This performance gap may reflect investor sentiment leaning towards safe-haven assets rather than speculation, amid increasing macroeconomic instability.

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