“Dear Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin is and must remain censorship resistant.” That’s the promise, the battle, and the line in the sand drawn this week as Leonidas, the host of The Ordinal Show, weighs in on the raging Spam Wars, warning Bitcoin Core:

“Any serious attempt by Bitcoin Core to tighten policy rules or censor Ordinals and Runes transactions will be met with decisive action.”

Bitcoin Core: transaction censorship is a ‘dangerous precedent’

Leonidas argues that the Bitcoin network was designed to be neutral, permissionless, and open to anyone willing to pay competitive fees. To censor JPEGs, memecoins, or any on-chain experiment under the guise of ‘spam’ is to undermine what sets Bitcoin apart: resistance to censorship at the base layer. He warns:

“There is no meaningful difference between normalizing the censorship of JPEG or memecoin transactions and normalizing the censorship of certain monetary transactions by nation-states. Both would set very dangerous precedents.”

For anyone following the 2025 Spam Wars, the Core versus Knots debate is everywhere, and node operators have begun voting with their feet, flocking to Knots for its aggressive anti-spam features.

Knots’ share has ballooned from 69 nodes at the start of 2024 to over 4,200 in September 2025, now representing over 18% of the reachable network, a dramatic show of protest against Core’s upcoming v30 release.

At stake is more than OP_RETURN data limits here. It’s a battle over Bitcoin’s soul: Should the protocol remain a strictly monetary settlement layer, or can it evolve to support innovative on-chain uses, as long as transaction fees are paid?

The Ordinals and Runes perspective

The Ordinals and Runes ecosystem, according to Leonidas, has driven over half a billion in fees, supporting miners and security, while “using Bitcoin as money every day” outside of legacy narratives. They’re fed up pf being “gaslit” by Knots proponents.

Miners aren’t sitting out, either, he says. Many mining pools commanding over half of Bitcoin’s hash rate have privately expressed willingness to accept any consensus-valid transaction so long as security and implementation are sound. That’s not neutrality in name only; it’s how protocol resilience is achieved on the ground.

‘Standing with the Degens’: the Shinobi angle

Few comments captured the mood quite like Bitcoin Core’s Shinobi’s:

The Crypto Investor Blueprint: A 5-Day Course On Bagholding, Insider Front-Runs, and Missing Alpha

Nice Your first lesson is on the way.

Please add [email protected] to your email whitelist.

“As retarded as I think all the sh*t they do is, I stand with the Degens. I will not participate or standby while a bunch of moralizing puritanical clowns try to undermine the very thing Bitcoin exists to be: a censorship resistant system.”

It’s raw, it’s frustrated, and it echoes a broader sentiment among those who think differently from Knots: resistance to any transaction censorship is non-negotiable, whether the threat is JPEGs, memecoins, or nation-state monetary disputes.

Tensions continue to boil over on X and Nostr, with miners, node operators, and developers locked in heated debates about nearly every technical detail from OP_RETURN caps to what constitutes “spam.”

Knots’ meteoric node share growth has made fragmentation and chain splits more than theoretical. As Bitcoin Core developer Peter Tood commented:

“This has gotten so out of hand that the Knots crowd are becoming a serious risk to Bitcoin.”

If adoption continues, Knots could reach 23% of the network by October, rerpreseting a tipping point for consensus. The message from Leonidas and many other degens this week is clear:

“We will not sit idly by while transaction censorship is normalized on Bitcoin. We will defend the principles that have always set Bitcoin apart, such as open access, censorship resistance, and neutrality at the base layer”.

To the gatekeepers at Bitcoin Core: Bitcoin is and must remain censorship resistant. Anything less would betray the very thing the world’s first digital currency was built to oppose.

Canny kids are borrowing adult faces to get around the age checks now required to access popular websites in the U.K., but there’s an easier (if more expensive) method: just use a virtual private network to access the web from another country. A tried and tested method for use in other countries with heavy internet censorship, that football’s coming home. The Financial Times reports an explosion in use of VPNs there in the last week. [archive]

But to evade the new rules, a growing number of people in the UK are turning to tools more often used by citizens in authoritarian regimes to get around internet censorship. Apps offering virtual private networks — which route a smartphone or PC’s internet traffic to another country, bypassing local network providers — made up half of the top 10 most popular free apps on the UK’s App Store for iOS this weekend, according to Apple’s rankings. Proton VPN leapfrogged ChatGPT to become the top free app in the UK, according to Apple’s daily App Store charts, with similar services from developers Super Unlimited and Nord Security also rising over the weekend. Proton, the Swiss-based company behind the top VPN app, said it had experienced a more than 1,800 per cent increase in daily sign-ups from UK-based users after new age verification rules took effect on Friday. Nord said there had been a 1,000 per cent increase in UK purchases of VPN subscriptions since before the rules took effect.

An amazing quote from Proton: “We would normally associate these large spikes in sign-ups with major civil unrest.”

The so-called “Online Safety Act” does prohibit VPN companies from disclosing that their services can be used to circumvent censorship, but did not otherwise regulate their use. The omnishambles at hand–nothing successfully blocked and everyday Britons learning en masse how to browse more privately–has already got local media vaguely suggesting a VPN ban is now on the table.

The provocative collage master delivers his most ambitious work yet — and it’s pure fire

Artist. Instigator. Innovator.

There are NFT artists, and then there’s Slimesunday — a name that’s become synonymous with provocative digital art, fearless storytelling, and boundary-pushing innovation. Known for walking the razor’s edge between expression and censorship, Slimesunday has built a career out of asking hard questions in soft places — glossy magazines, polished platforms, and now, the hallowed halls of SuperRare’s Offline Gallery.

With Banned from New York, his latest and most ambitious solo exhibition, Slimesunday ascends to a new level — a complete and uncompromising vision that fuses physical works, NFTs, and immersive storytelling into one unflinching critique of modern censorship and creative suppression. This is not just a show. It’s a statement. And arguably, his greatest artistic achievement to date.

From Banned to Beloved: The Rise of Slimesunday

Based in Salem, Massachusetts, Slimesunday (Mike Parisella) made a name for himself by exploring themes too edgy for the mainstream. While social platforms regularly buried, flagged, or shadowbanned his content, audiences couldn’t get enough — his following exploded, and collectors quickly recognized the cultural weight of his work.

His surreal and often erotic collages have graced the pages of Playboy, Penthouse, Glamour, and Hunger, and he’s collaborated with major musical acts like Lana Del Rey, Beck, Katy Perry, J Balvin, and 3LAU, where he serves as art director and co-creator of the audiovisual project SSX3LAU.

In the NFT space, Slimesunday ranks among the top-earning crypto artists — not just because his work is controversial, but because it’s important. His pieces are as technically masterful as they are thematically bold, pulling from digital nostalgia, glitch culture, and raw human psychology. Whether you’re staring at one of his NFTs or walking past one of his wheatpaste works in NYC, the impact is unmistakable.

Banned from New York: A Career-Defining Exhibition

Slimesunday’s exhibition, presented by SuperRare and Roger Dickerman, spans the full spectrum of his medium mastery — physical sculptures, glitchy MP4s, wheatpaste panels, and digital-physical hybrids.

But what ties them all together? A singular theme: visibility vs. control.

“They don’t need to ban you,” Slimesunday says. “They just make sure no one sees it.”

MS Paint (2024) – $18,000

A deeply personal, physical tribute to his first digital art tool. The entire piece — carved in HDU and painted by hand — captures the exact palette and UI of Windows 98, turning nostalgia into fine art.

No Time to Kare & Winamp V6.9 – 5 ETH

Digital tapestries of broken pixels, dithering, and old forum energy. These are animated memories for the LimeWire generation.

Lady Liberty – Auction on July 31

A reimagined icon of freedom in a world of digital oppression. “Posting this hurts my reach,” he says. “But that’s why it matters.”

Weedman – $25,000

What started as glue, weed, and a Playboy ad became a layered commentary on cannabis, race, and incarceration. Backed by a $10,000 donation to the Last Prisoner Project, it’s proof that Slimesunday doesn’t just make noise — he backs it up.

Marked & Sunday School Dropout – $14k–$15k

Two wheatpaste-on-wood pieces that challenge religion, algorithms, and modern dogma. Sunday School Dropout was so controversial it was pulled from a prior gallery. Slimesunday didn’t flinch — he doubled down.

Squares Series (2024–2025)

Inspired by David Hockney, these deconstructed prints blur nudity, censorship, and composition into elegant chaos.

Roll Model – 3 ETH

The birth of Weedman in visual form. A chaotic, raw capture of the artist’s process in its purest state.

The Power of the Provocateur

Slimesunday doesn’t just comment on censorship — he experiences it firsthand. Whether it’s being shadowbanned on Instagram, throttled by opaque algorithms, or cut from a gallery last-minute, he has lived the tension that defines his work.

He’s not chasing likes. He’s chasing truth.

“Religion was the original algorithm,” he says. “Now the church is digital… and the priests wear Patagonia vests.”

This isn’t just edgy rhetoric — it’s the lived experience of an artist creating in a time when platforms, not people, decide what is “acceptable.”

The Offline Gallery: Where Digital Meets Real

SuperRare’s Offline Gallery in NYC is the perfect venue. More than just a space, it’s a proving ground for NFT art’s cultural legitimacy. And with Roger Dickerman and 24 Hours of Art behind it, the platform is set for this moment to resonate beyond crypto — into the larger cultural conversation.

Fireside Chat with RD – July 31, 6–7PM
Opening Reception – July 31, 7–9PM

Final Thoughts: This Is the Moment

With Banned from New York, Slimesunday isn’t just showcasing his best work — he’s cementing his legacy. This is the culmination of years of resistance, experimentation, and raw, unfiltered creation.

This isn’t art that asks for approval. It dares you to look, to question, and to feel.

And that’s exactly what makes it so powerful.

TL;DR

Slimesunday’s Banned from New York exhibition is the most important work of his career — a visceral, multidisciplinary exploration of censorship, nostalgia, and artistic resistance. With backing from SuperRare and Roger Dickerman, this show blends physical and digital mediums in a way only Slimesunday can, and solidifies his place as one of the most essential artists in the NFT and digital art landscape.

HodlX Guest Post  Submit Your Post

AI (artificial intelligence) creates an ethical crisis of algorithmic censorship. By glossing over this problem, we risk allowing governments and corporations to control the global conversation.

Both AI technology and industry have gone parabolic. Its censorship potential becomes greater every day.

Every one to two years since 2010, the computational power of training AI systems has increased by a factor of 10, making the threat of censorship and control of public discourse more real than ever.

Corporations worldwide ranked privacy and data governance as their top AI risks, while censorship didn’t register on their radar.

AI – which can process millions of data points in seconds – can censor through various means, including content moderation and control of information.

LLMs (large language models) and content recommendations can filter, suppress or mass share information at scale.

In 2023, Freedom House highlighted that AI is enhancing state-led censorship.

In China, the CAC (Cyberspace Administration) has incorporated censorship strategy into generative AI tools, requiring chatbots to support “core socialist values” and block content the communist party wants to censor.

Chinese AI models, such as DeepSeek’s R1, already censor topics like the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to spread state narratives.

“To protect the free and open internet, democratic policymakers – working side by side with civil society experts from around the world – should establish strong human rights–based standards for both state and non-state actors that develop or deploy AI tools,” concludes Freedom House.

In 2021, UC San Diego found that AI algorithms trained on censored datasets, such as China’s Baidu Baike, which associates the keyword ‘democracy’ with ‘chaos.’

Models trained on uncensored sources associated ‘democracy’ with ‘stability.’

In 2023, Freedom House’s ‘Freedom on the Net’ report found that global internet freedom fell for the 13th consecutive year. It attributed a large part of the decline to AI.

Twenty-two countries have laws in place requiring social media companies to employ automated systems for content moderation, which could be used to suppress debate and demonstrations.

Myanmar’s military junta, for instance, used AI to monitor Telegram groups and detain dissidents and carry out death sentences based on their posts. The same happened in Iran.

Additionally, in Belarus and Nicaragua, governments sentenced individuals to draconian prison terms for their online speech.

Freedom House found that no fewer than 47 governments used comments to sway online conversations towards their preferred narratives.

It found that in the past year, new technology was used in at least 16 countries to sow the seeds of doubt, smear opponents or influence public debate.

At least 21 countries require digital platforms to use machine learning to delete political, social and religious speech.

A 2023 Reuters report warned that AI-generated deepfakes and misinformation could “undermine public trust in democratic processes,” empowering regimes that seek to tighten control over information.

In the 2024 US presidential elections, AI-generated images falsely implying Taylor Swift endorsed Donald Trump demonstrated that AI is already manipulating public opinion.

China offers the most prominent example of AI-driven censorship.

A leaked dataset analyzed by TechCrunch in 2025 revealed a sophisticated AI system designed to censor topics like pollution scandals, labor disputes and Taiwan political issues.

Unlike traditional keyword-based filtering, this system uses LLMs to evaluate context and flag political satire.

Researcher Xiao Qiang noted that such systems “significantly improve the efficiency and granularity of state-led information control.”

A 2024 House Judiciary Committee report accused the NSF (National Science Foundation) of funding AI tools to combat ‘misinformation’ on Covid-19 and the 2020 election.

The report found that the NSF funded AI-based censorship and propaganda tools.

“In the name of combating alleged misinformation regarding Covid-19 and the 2020 election, NSF has been issuing multi-million-dollar grants to university and non-profit research teams,” reads the report.

“The purpose of these taxpayer-funded projects is to develop AI-powered censorship and propaganda tools that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others.”

A 2025 WIRED report discovered that DeepSeek’s R1 model includes censorship filters at both the application and training levels, resulting in blocks on sensitive topics.

In 2025, a Pew Research Center survey found that 83% of US adults were concerned about AI-driven misinformation, with many showing concerns about its free speech implications.

Pew interviewed AI experts, who said that AI training data can unintentionally reinforce existing power structures.

Addressing AI-driven censorship

A 2025 HKS Misinformation Review called for better reporting to reduce fear-driven calls for censorship.

The survey found that 38.8% of Americans are somewhat concerned, and 44.6% are highly concerned, about AI’s role in spreading misinformation during the 2024 US presidential election, while 9.5% held no concerns, and 7.1% were unaware of the issue altogether.

Creating an open-source AI ecosystem is of the utmost importance. This means companies disclose training dataset sources and biases.

Governments should create AI regulatory frameworks prioritizing free expression.

If we want a human future, instead of an AI-managed technocratic dystopia, the AI industry and consumers need to build up the courage to tackle censorship.

Manouk Termaaten is an entrepreneur, an AI export and the founder and CEO of Vertical Studio AI. He’s aiming to make AI accessible to everyone. With a background in engineering and finance, he seeks to disrupt the AI sector with accessible customization tools and affordable computers.

Check Latest Headlines on HodlX

Follow Us on Twitter Facebook Telegram

Check out the Latest Industry Announcements  

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Generated Image: DALLE3

Rushil Agrawal / Android Authority

Jokes: Humor has limits

Mitja Rutnik / Android Authority

Illegal activities: No help whatsoever

Mitja Rutnik / Android Authority

Is AI censorship good or bad?

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

Censoring basic political questions doesn’t sit right with me.

What about the competition?

Robert Triggs / Android Authority