Hey guys, this is Rudy Dazzleworth coming back at you with another plebslop Pulitzer article.
This one is titled, How Overnight Not Grubbles Abandoned Everything He Believed About Bitcoin Spam by Justin Beckler.
The article was originally posted on Twitter and can be found on Justin's Twitter page.
The article includes multiple screenshots I will not be reading, just for efficiency in getting you this groundbreaking piece of pleb journalism.
Something is happening to Bitcoin's anti-spam movement.
One by one, accounts that spent years raging against inscriptions,
warning about blockchain bloat and defending the right of ordinary node runners
to sync and verify Bitcoin without downloading a sudden flood of spam have reversed completely.
Or over two years, not Grubbles was one of Bitcoin's clearest and most aggressive voices
against spam on the network.
I was his biggest fan,
and there are hundreds of tweets
that could be embedded in this article
to document why so many of us
who are toxically opposed to spam on Bitcoin
fist pumped every time he posted.
Then something happened in August,
a sudden and shocking 180 degree reversal
on Bitcoin spam.
This is the documented record of that reversal,
sourced entirely from his own public posts on X.
Note, since research for this article began, Grubbles has been actively deleting posts from his timeline
and several damning tweets cited in earlier drafts are no longer accessible because I was a dummy
and screenshots weren't captured before they disappeared
Phase 1, the anti-spam warrior, 2023-2024
when the first four megabyte inscription block was mined at the very beginning of the inscriptions
exploit on February 1st, 2023 at Not Grubbles reacted the way any principled bitcoiner concerned
about block space abuse would react. He wanted to filter it. He wanted to apply spam filtering to his
own Bitcoin node. He saw Luke Dascher's filter patch as a sensible, necessary tool. In early 2023,
This was a considered, technically informed position from someone who understood what was at stake.
Over the following weeks, he went further.
He raised alarms about what inscription spam was doing to the network's infrastructure,
and he understood the problem through the lens of the people who actually run Bitcoin nodes.
This is a precise, technically sound argument.
Inscription spam bloats the blockchain, pressures node operators into pruning, and centralizes archival data.
Fewer archival nodes means slower IBD for new participants.
He understood the externalities.
He articulated them clearly, and we all know that he was right.
He called it what it was, repeatedly, without hedging.
He also understood, and stated clearly, that spam degrades the ability to run a node.
On December 9 2023 he connected the dots between spam and the real cost of syncing Bitcoin Harder to sink a full node Those are his words That was his concern He will abandon this argument completely within 18 months
By late December the 20th, 23, his position had only hardened. When the Atomicals ARC20 Quark
token launched, requiring approximately 1 million on-chain transactions to mint out,
his response was unambiguous. He warned about JPEG spam outpricing lightning on-chain operations,
precisely the kind of economic displacement that spam inflicts on legitimate Bitcoin users.
In November 2024, he was still fighting the same fight. Phase 2. The Last Stand, April to June 2025.
Through the first half of 2025, Not Grubbles maintained his anti-spam position with full conviction.
He was the favorite repost of those of us in the toxic anti-spam group.
He praised Luke Dasher's work, defended Bitcoin Nots, and continued warning about what non-monetary arbitrary data, spam, was doing to Bitcoin.
You know he's right.
Those are his words about the developer who has dedicated years of his life to
building spam filtering tools for Bitcoin. The Stallman comparison is very
specific. It means Luke is the uncomfortable truth-teller who's correct
about spam and filtering even when the crowd doesn't want to hear it. In June,
he was still articulating the case against blockchain bloat with the
precision of someone who genuinely understood what was at stake for the
people who actually run this network. It's significant to note that Post is from June 16th.
He's explaining, in his own words, why monetary arbitrary data, spam, on Bitcoin degrades nodes
and harms decentralization. On the same day, he called uploading JPEGs to a proof-of-work
blockchain stupid and expressed visceral frustration about AML-compliant freezable
runes being deployed on Bitcoin. He was also still defending the ability of ordinary people
to run nodes on limited hardware and still thinking about centralization pressure from
blockchain bloat. August 2025. Something changed. In August, Not Grebbles reversed his entire
position on Bitcoin spam. The transition was sudden and stark. There's no post explaining why,
no engagement with his former arguments, no retraction of the Stallman comparison.
The reversal simply happens, like a switch was flipped.
What's publicly known is that NotGrebles currently works at Second,
a company building Bitcoin apps and payment infrastructure on Bitcoin using the ARK protocol.
Before that, he was at Blockstream.
The Blockstream connection deepens the pattern.
Blockstream, where CEO Adam Back has followed a strikingly similar reversal arc on Bitcoin spam.
Andy er I mean Adam was also once one of the clearest voices against non abuse of block space yet has also done a shocking complete about Not Grubbles appears to have carried this institutional DNA with him
The trajectory is almost identical.
Principled opposition to spam, proximity to companies whose revenue models benefit from
keeping block space open to arbitrary data, and then a quiet capitulation under the pretense
of intellectual evolution, but staunchly maintaining the absurd pretense of
very, very opposed to spam on Bitcoin, of course.
When the same reversal keeps happening
to people connected to the same institutions,
at some point you stop calling it a coincidence
and start calling it a sinister pipeline.
Phase three, the brand new not grubbles, August to present.
By August, the account that years calling inscriptions
JPEG spam and fighting for node runners
began mocking anti-spam advocates
and attacking anyone who wanted to protect Bitcoin's monetary purpose.
By October, the man who once called a million shitcoin transactions an obvious spam attack
was dismissing the entire phenomenon as tourist hype that had already resolved itself.
By October 19th, anti-spam advocates were no longer fellow Bitcoiners with legitimate concerns.
They were tyrants.
By November, he was openly mocking anyone who believed spam had harmed Bitcoin at all.
And on December 14th, he gave up the game entirely.
The small block size and fee market already solved spam, he said,
as if his years of raging about inscription spam had never happened.
He had turned on Luke Dascher entirely,
publicly questioning whether Luke should retain his DNS seed privileges.
the developer whose filter he once considered patching into his own node
the man he compared to Richard Stallman had become a target
and then came December 14th, 2025
he admits he was early on pretty determined to hinder the ability to spam Bitcoin
he acknowledges the flip
then he calls the people still holding the same position he held for years the real threat
The anti-spammers will actually destroy Bitcoin if they get their way.
He once said Luke Dascher was right about spam filtering.
He now says the people who agree with Luke will destroy Bitcoin.
By early 2026, the transformation was shockingly complete.
Follow the incentives.
He works at Second, a company building the ARK protocol and lightning payment infrastructure on top of Bitcoin.
Before second, he was at Blockstream.
His career depends on building application layers on Bitcoin.
Companies that build applications and protocols on Bitcoin's data infrastructure have a financial interest in a permissive base layer.
They benefit when block space accommodates broad usage patterns.
They are harmed when the community enforces monetary discipline on what belongs in a Bitcoin block.
A developer at a company building dApps on Bitcoin who simultaneously advocates for filtering
non data from blocks has a problem That problem resolved itself publicly in August 2025 Correlation is not causation but when a person reverses every logical sensible
technically sound position they held for years
in a matter of days with no public explanation,
while employed by a company whose business model
benefits from the reversal,
the conclusion is pretty obvious.
Who benefits?
Every company building non-monetary applications on Bitcoin
benefits from the anti-spam movement losing a vocal and credible advocate.
Opponents of Bitcoin benefit.
Who loses?
Node runners.
Every ordinary Bitcoiner, not Grubbles, once claimed to be fighting for.
Yet another tax on nodes and yet another compromise for which the node runner is not incentivized.
The irony is that two years ago, Grubbles would have been the first person to write this article.
He would have found the receipts, posted the screenshots, and called it exactly what it looks like.
What happened to Grubbles?
Stefan Lavera is next.
Thank you for listening to this special episode of Plebslop Pulitzer Prize Pieces.
My name is Rudy Dazzleworth, and I hope you have a fantastically fruity day.
I'll see you soon.
Thank you.