On October 26, pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm proposed a soft fork of bitcoin (BTC).
One of its activation methods, a so-called reactionary fork by mining pool operators who might reject illegal content like CSAM or nationally classified material within blocks, could split BTC into two assets with distinct market capitalizations.
For weeks, members of the Bitcoin community have been trying — often as a lighthearted time-killer on social media — to de-anonymize the developer.
Believing that Bitcoin’s consensus rules should limit the storage of large quantities of data unrelated to the on-chain movement of BTC, Ohm posted a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) draft for a soft fork that would impose a maximum OP_RETURN datacarrier of 83 bytes — far less than the 100KB mempool threshold of Bitcoin Core version 30 (v30).
Soon, that draft earned a preliminary BIP number 444, the most likely number after Bitcoin’s current BIP 443.
Read more: Knots leader says Bitcoin Core v30 could host illegal adult content
Denial from the top candidate for Dathon Ohm
Citing moral and legal risks to Core v30 node operators, Ohm has earned support from Knots node operators — the second-most popular version of Bitcoin node software.
Alignment with Knots’ limited use of OP_RETURN datacarrier, as well as support from Knots’ lead developer Luke Dashjr, has led many to conclude that Dashjr himself is the author of BIP 444.
For years, Dashjr has been an outspoken critic of Bitcoin Core’s infrequent decisions to reduce fees for or accommodate on-chain data that he classifies as “spam,” including the recent OP_RETURN datacarrier easement in Core v30.
His fork of Core, Knots, has seen an upswing in usage since the OP_RETURN debate began.
Although he’s an obvious first guess as to the real identity of Ohm, Dashjr has denied it. This denial is backed up by his colleague and co-leader of the Knots movement, Bitcoin Mechanic.
Mechanic also clarified that he’s not Ohm, although he admits that he knows Ohm’s identity.
More attempts to unmask Dathon Ohm
Casey Rodarmor, a controversial inscription protocol developer who launched ORD and spawned a briefly speculative bubble in NFT-like Ordinals, is a third potential candidate.
Although people have called Rodarmor an entertaining guess, Ohm’s proposal would cap Bitcoin Taproot data and limit Bitcoin script operations that would negatively impact Rodarmor’s ORD system.
Somebody else speculated that Dathon Ohm could be an astrologer, without naming anyone in particular.
Another member of the Bitcoin community guessed Dashjr’s collaborator Leo Wandersleb, admitting, “I have as much proof as I have doubt.”
Super Testnet chimed in to appreciate the lighthearted guess, asking to be pulled into the conspiracy without evidence.
Other people theorised that Ohm could be Chris Guida, an outspoken critic of Core v30 and supporter of Knots, while others guessed Nick Szabo, a recent critic of Core v30.
At the end of the day, a fortunate feature of Bitcoin development is that the precise identity of Bitcoin developers isn’t particularly important for the success of a BIP.
Indeed, if a BIP prevails on its merits, even anonymous devs may succeed in changing Bitcoin’s policies or consensus rules without ever revealing their name.
Although Ohm’s identity is only known to a few people within the Bitcoin community, the success of BIP 444 is ultimately a matter of the quality of its suggestions — not the identity of its author.
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Source: https://protos.com/dathon-ohm-the-dev-who-wants-to-fork-bitcoin/
