Most Influential: Luke Dashjr

Veteran Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr is at the forefront of one of the most hotly-discussed debates in cryptocurrency — what the original blockchain network should be used for.

The advent of the Ordinals protocol in 2023, which allowed a form of NFTs to be minted on Bitcoin, and Runes a year later, which did something similar for fungible tokens, prompted calls from a number of voices — few as prominent as Dashjr’s — that they bring unnecessary spam to the Bitcoin network, distracting it from its core mission.

Dashjr’s resume includes helping fix Bitcoin’s accidental hard fork in 2013 and maintaining the alternative Bitcoin Knots, giving him status as a venerable developer and commentator who warns against allowing a proliferation of non-financial transactions on Bitcoin.

This forms part of the controversy around the proposed changes to the blockchain’s OP_RETURN, removing the 80-byte cap on data that can be attached to transactions, via “inscriptions.” Dashjr called this “utter insanity,” warning that loosening data restrictions would clog up the network with what he calls “spam,” and detract Bitcoin from its core purpose as decentralized digital money.

Dashjr’s critics, however, argue that his vision of Bitcoin requires compromising its principle of immutability. Ocean, the Jack Dorsey-backed mining pool of which Dashjr is a founder, has declined to process some inscription transactions.

Such debates will continue into 2026 and beyond, and it is likely that Luke Dashjr will remain one of the most prominent voices in them.