Bitcoin Ordinals advocate Leonidas has unveiled a proposal for a new open-source Bitcoin client named Bitcoin $DOG Mode, designed to strip away transaction restrictions that currently hamper Ordinals inscriptions and Runes activity on the network.
What ‘$DOG Mode’ Would Change
In an X post published on Friday, Leonidas outlined two core technical changes the proposed client would implement compared to Bitcoin Core:
- Raise the maximum individual transaction size from 400,000 weight units (WU) to 3.9 million WU
- Lower the dust limit from the current range of 294 to 546 satoshis down to just 1 satoshi
The expanded transaction size limit would allow Ordinals users to inscribe significantly larger files or entire collections within a single transaction, potentially filling nearly an entire Bitcoin block. The dust limit is the rule defining the smallest amount, or UTXO, that can economically be sent on the network; reducing it would eliminate the need for users to artificially ‘pad’ transaction outputs simply to get them broadcast on default Bitcoin Core nodes.
At this stage the client exists as a proposal rather than software. Leonidas has not published code, a development timeline, or a list of contributors.
Direct Challenge to Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots
Leonidas framed the proposal as a deliberate pushback against what he described as years of unnecessary policy enforcement by the two most widely used Bitcoin clients.
‘Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots have spent years enforcing rules that Bitcoin itself does not have. The $DOG Army is done asking for permission. It is time to remove even more of these frivolous restrictions.’
The stated long-term goal is to build enough user adoption for $DOG Mode that Bitcoin Core itself would be pressured to relax its own mempool policy restrictions.
‘Over time the economic incentives will drive $DOG Mode’s adoption and force Bitcoin Core to stop gatekeeping and allow these completely valid transactions,’ Leonidas said.
Background: Ordinals and Runes Controversy
Ordinals and Runes are Bitcoin-native protocols that function as analogues to non-fungible and fungible tokens respectively. Both have remained deeply divisive within the Bitcoin developer and user community.
Critics argue the transactions they generate amount to spam: non-monetary data competing for limited block space, driving up fees for ordinary BTC transfers and bloating the storage burden on every node operator who has to keep the chain. That is the restriction $DOG Mode would remove, and the reason Core and Knots enforce it. Leonidas, an Ordinals advocate whose case rests on making Ordinals and Runes easier to use, is arguing the opposite: that these are valid transactions Bitcoin’s own rules permit, and that client software should not stand in their way.
The $DOG Mode proposal is the latest flashpoint in that dispute. It follows earlier tensions including a BIP-110 proposal that drew public criticism from Bitcoin proponents including Michael Saylor and Adam Back.
If developed and launched, $DOG Mode would become an alternative to both Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots, competing directly for node operators who want to participate in Ordinals and Runes activity without the current protocol-level friction.
