Bitcoin sees a 3% drop in just an hour thanks to OP_RETURN

Bitcoin just dipped by 3% at 00:17 GMT today (January 19, 2026). A bunch of former holders, not happy with the recent update in the Bitcoin Core code that boosted the OP_RETURN limit to 100Kb, dumped 62,656 BTC all at once. This triggered a chain reaction with early long liquidations in the speculative market, which caused that 3% drop in no time. Seems like this Bitcoin Core code change was pushed by big institutional players along with a small circle of developers to shake things up. In short, these former holders, who usually believe in financial freedom, are being backed into a corner with the acceptance of non-financial stuff, including CSAMs, on their blockchains. It's no surprise they’re jumping ship while institutional investors step in.

Really?This is the first time I've heard of something like this, a massive sale of bitcoins due to disagreement with changes in the protocol. I suppose those who are selling have much more than that to sell as a sign of protest. The previous theory I had heard was that this was due to Trump's threat of tariffs over the Greenland issue, but if that were the case, it would have happened earlier.

Where did you get this news from? I tried using the source link you provided but seems like it is your website and I also tried searching for it but I couldn’t find any info about it.. I also saw that the decline was somehow related to the US and EU trade wars but I couldn’t find how it is related to what is written in the OP

-Mom, look, retared people are making posts on Bitcointalk!  Let me guess, alt of the mentally challenged Knots shill? Nope! His ass! Which one would you think would be smarter than his brain, taking into account what he's posting! I'm just curious what happened on the 13th according to him,  when the price jumped from 92k to 97k....

OP is being disingenuous, he is trying to suggest the price dropped due to OP_RETURN which we all know is being used as an FUD tool by Bitcoin Knots users. The price actually dropped due to uncertainty in markets as a result of Trump’s Greenland actions, threatening tariffs on all who attempt to block his plans for the US to acquire Greenland. Bitcoin dumped 3% pretty much bang on when stocks futures markets opened after being closed over the weekend and the national holiday on Monday. Stocks dump ——> Bitcoin dumps more, it’s nearly always been that way. We will probably dump more when US Markets open tomorrow but it’s nothing to do with OP_RETURN. It is geopolitical tensions and trade war threats.

Maybe. Or maybe not. The title attracts people and I guess that it will also bring quite some clicks / impressions to that website. I was at first genuinely surprised that the post is made in Speculation sub. Then it has occurred to me he is just pretending to be stupid, just for a few extra bucks. Of course, the fact he's a k-NOT-s shill disqualifies him anyway.

It's obvious you have a thing against OP_RETURN. It would be better if you just straight up say why you do not like a thing instead of looking for events to score points. The average bitcoin movement a day is between 2-3 percent so it's not a big deal as you're making it to seem, What a shocker that Bitcoin went from 95,000 to 92,000. By the way, Bitcoin has gone down by 2.18 per cent in the last 24 hours, that's normal, considering how Bitcoin moves.

Nice way to shill your website her OP. I'm no expert in technicalities as far as Bitcoin goes, but I have seen this OP_RETURN debate since late last year so maybe the effect is price in or maybe investors are not concern about it. In any case, as others have said, the decline might be influence by the geo-political things that is going around especially around's Trump announcement that he wanted to annex Greenland. And with that, there will be a military action, but his allies are not willing to allow him to do that and so they build up their presence in the Danish area. So many investors might be afraid, and so they could have pulled some of their stash and sold because of the possible conflict.

Yes, geopolitics also interferes, in addition to early liquidations in the speculative market. Now the biggest sell-off is coming from long-term holders unhappy with the increase in the OP_RETURN limit by the Bitcoin Core developers. According to this source: ( https://beincrypto.com/bitcoin-price-13-percent-breakout-hope/ ) more than sixty thousand BTCs from old wallets were sold in just one hour. This hit the order book and caused early liquidations long in the speculative market. Yes, I am against increasing the limit for OP_RETURN, which is why I published how to migrate to Knots here : ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5565846.msg66066444#msg66066444 ). In fact, the drop wasn't that big, the issue is that there's a lot more of a drop ahead, fueled by institutional investors trying to take over the network.

its always better to avoid a serlf refernce maybe to collect few external clicks. HOW has been determined that these coins coming from Bitcoin Core? Who has confirmed or make a verification of these data (and I would add... why not just post some analysis?) This is a well known problem and an argument discussed for a awhile but I am not expecting any real action to "hurt" the price.

Hehehehe the dump was not because of a disagreement on bitcoin's development. This might be because there are whales that might be beginning to speculate that bitcoin is presently in a bear market and the price might dump lower. According to this article, bitcoin is on another price consolidation of 60 days which has triggered rallies before. If after this present 60 days, if the price will dump, this will certainly be the warning sign of the bear market. Bitcoin price consolidation nears 60-day window that's historically triggered rallies Bitcoin has remained between the November low near $80,000 and the January high around $98,000 for 59 days, and is now approaching the roughly 60-day timespan that marked previous consolidations since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX marked the cycle bottom in 2022. Take, for example, April 2025 during the market turmoil related to President Donald Trump's tariff policies. Bitcoin bottomed near $76,000 and held between that level and $85,000 for about 52 days before breaking out higher. Earlier, between December 2023 and mid February 2024, bitcoin ranged just below $40,000 to around $50,000 for roughly 57 days, coinciding with the debut of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs. This consolidation resolved with a breakout to new highs in March 2024. Another comparable phase took place from August through October 2023, when bitcoin traded between $25,000 and $30,000 for around 59 days before climbing higher. Finally, following the FTX collapse that marked the prior cycle bottom, bitcoin consolidated for approximately 62 days around the $15,000 level. That range ended with a breakout in January 2023, signaling the start of the new market cycle. Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/19/bitcoin-price-consolidation-nears-60-day-window-that-s-historically-triggered-rallies

Disagreements between developers greatly affect the value of any cryptoactive, see the case of ZEC for example.

I don't know how lifting the entire article from the source to this place without adding a single letter of your own word looks like even though you dropped the link to the source. To me it seems not cool and represent a display of laxity of the highest order. You would have given your opinion or just added a statement of yours to the post so it look like you made the least effort. If every one is lifting article like this to this forum, it does not seem ethical to me.

souce: https://beincrypto.com/bitcoin-price-13-percent-breakout-hope/

I do not think that is true. Do you have any sources besides your very own website? It seems more like you are shilling for your own website while spreading fud at an opportune time. But obviously there is a lot of panic-selling going on right now. Which I think is very foolish but perhaps we should be thanking them for the cheap coins. We would be foolish to not take advantage. The website does not even load.

Sorry for the slowness of my website, I'm under attack. It seems the truth is bothering some people. Try this: https://web.archive.org/web/20260120170136/https://davipinheiro.com/bitcoin-cai-3-em-uma-hora/

BTC is below the 50 day average as of today so being negative is fair if you should want to do that.  I would not label the entire movement of BTC down to just one thing, it doesnt matter the story its not usually just one thing.    I dislike that BTC tracks dollar so much as the world is alot larger then just one currency but there is a large bias together with stories related to dollar.    The ironic thing for today and this week is the Dollar index is falling and I had been watching for it to break above 100 but once again its failed in that respect which in theory helps BTC and many other prices; BTC is never that predictable. We're range bound or 'boxed in' so I guess its fair expectation for swings to occur until we break that large range imo; its the speculation section and everyone has their own perspective.  Quite a few have no idea about protocol changes this way or another, they do notice how it might affect themselves on the ground quite often its about fees and time to confirm, etc.    I really dislike thinking whale this or that is what steers BTC, it should be the smallest but vast number of users making up any trend in the end.   Also regarding today we cannot ignore main markets pulled back, BTC is used like a cash asset and also its speculative, it does best with expending markets not retraction so that kind of action is my first thought tbh.

$6.3bn of active liquidity sounds pretty good. How does "we dumped the price to protest institutions" work? The institutions have a lot more cash on their balance sheet than that and can now buy for cheaper...

Now this is the kind of high level trolling that we haven't seen in these parts in a while.    We need more of this as it's fun to see everybody bring their pitch forks out and rally together to attack the troll. Man I remember back in the day some smart guys in here who used to do some funny high level trolling a lot in the altcoin section and all the clueless guys all react.  It was sooo funny. Thanks for this.  Like honestly...  It's entertaining.

There are certainly several factors that affect its value. After the increase in the OP_RETURN limit, old holders began to sell, which affected the speculative market with the early liquidation of longs. Furthermore, the physical and tariff wars also had an influence. In short, all this selling pressure was greater than the institutional buying appetite and the devaluation of fiat currency combined. Exactly, this was the institutional plan: Bribe Bitcoin Core devs to increase the OP_RETURN limit and force former holders to sell so they can buy cheap. It's true, I'm not kidding.