A significant divergence has been observed between the stated principles and actual practices of Bitcoin Knots users, particularly in their advocacy for mining decentralization and Bitcoin’s utility as a monetary network. While they claim to be proponents of these crucial goals, their actions, upon closer examination, appear to actively work against them.

Mining decentralization is paramount for Bitcoin's censorship resistance, requiring a clear majority of miners to operate free from coercion. Bitcoin Knots users frequently highlight OCEAN mining pool and its DATUM protocol as examples of their commitment to this goal. However, developers have been working on Stratum v2, an open-source protocol designed to allow individual miners to select transactions for inclusion in blocks, thus promoting decentralization. Notably, OCEAN, supported by prominent Knots adherents, has not adopted Stratum v2. Instead, they developed their proprietary DATUM protocol, which remains un-open-sourced despite pledges, creating a vendor lock-in for OCEAN pool. Unlike Stratum v2, which allows miners to switch pools instantly if a block template is rejected, DATUM defaults to solomining, leaving miners vulnerable if their proposed blocks are declined and without an easy option to migrate.

Furthermore, the practice of filtering transactions, which can occur with solutions like DATUM, impedes block propagation across the network. When nodes lack certain transactions within a relayed block header, it takes longer to validate and propagate the block. This delay disproportionately affects smaller miners. If a larger pool experiences an orphaned block due to slow propagation, their higher hash rate gives them a strong chance of finding the next block and 'saving' their work. Smaller miners lack this advantage, making high-fee transactions potentially unprofitable for them. In essence, the actions of OCEAN and Knots supporters, despite their rhetoric, appear to harm mining decentralization rather than defend it.

The second area of contention lies in Bitcoin’s use as money. Knots users assert their commitment to scaling Bitcoin as a monetary network, ensuring secure and censorship-resistant transactions. However, the latest release of Knots by default filters 'ephemeral anchors'—an optimization designed to enhance the efficiency of Lightning Network transactions by reducing on-chain fees for channel closures. This filtering prevents these transactions from relaying across the network, hindering Lightning users, especially when they need to non-cooperatively close channels to protect their funds. Similarly, the Knots OP_RETURN filter obstructs the relay of transactions critical for the correct operation of Layer 2 solutions like Citrea, which are specifically designed to scale financial transactions on Bitcoin.

In both critical aspects—mining decentralization and Bitcoin's scalability as money—the actions of Bitcoin Knots supporters appear to directly contradict their stated objectives. They proclaim themselves defenders of Bitcoin's decentralized and censorship-resistant nature, yet their software choices and proprietary solutions introduce dynamics that worsen centralization and actively undermine multiple Layer 2 protocols intended to expand Bitcoin's utility. This discrepancy between words and deeds suggests an 'Orwellian newspeak,' where stated values are diametrically opposed to observed actions. In an open network like Bitcoin, while individuals are free to run any software, understanding the real-world implications of these choices, beyond rhetoric, is crucial for the community.