Bitcoin may not be as resilient to network attacks as most think, according to Bitcoin pioneer Nick Szabo, who argues that while Bitcoin is a trust-minimized network, it isn’t entirely trustless and can still be “attacked” by nation-states and corporations.
In a post to X on Sunday, Szabo explained that every cryptocurrency and layer 1 network has a “legal attack” surface that enables them to be disrupted by governments.
Thinking Bitcoin or any blockchain protocol is a “magical anarcho-capitalist Swiss army knife that can withstand any kind of governmental attack in any legal area is insanity,” he said.
Szabo’s insights carry weight in the crypto community as he was an early pioneer of smart contracts. Some even speculate that he could secretly be Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, given that he developed the idea of Bit Gold in 1988. However, Szabo has publicly refuted claims that he is Nakamoto.
In a rebuttal post, Szabo said action against Bitcoin miners, node operators and wallet service providers could be coordinated in jurisdictions that uphold the rule of law.
Szabo was specifically talking about “arbitrary data” and the ability to delete certain content, should regulators force network participants to manipulate the network.
Ordinals, Runes TXs are at the root of Szabo’s concerns
It ties into the months-long Bitcoin Cores vs Knots debate over whether certain non-financial content — such as pictures, videos, and audio — through Ordinals, Runes, and BRC-20 transactions has a place in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
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The last few months have seen Bitcoin Knots capture a considerably larger market share of Bitcoin node validators after some Bitcoiners expressed disappointment in Bitcoin Core developers implementing the controversial OP_RETURN function that increases the amount of “spam” flooding the Bitcoin network.
Nick Szabo’s comments garner criticism
Szabo’s comments were criticized by several Bitcoiners, including Chris Seedor, the CEO of Bitcoin seed storage provider Seedor, who said Szabo was overestimating the power that speculative “legal boogeymen” possess.
“Bitcoin’s resilience was never about predicting every possible domain of law — it was about minimizing technical points where coercion can bite,” Seedor said, arguing that regulators would have shut down PGP, Tor, and other protocols if they could have.
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