Children and Pornography on Bitcoin: The Moral and Legal Mirror Presented to the Crypto Community

What if you find out that your Bitcoin node is storing illegal content related to children, should you also be held responsible? This is not a simple technological question – it is a test of law, ethics, and how decentralized networks should act in the face of real social harm. Recently, this issue has once again come to the forefront due to a comprehensive report from RWTH Aachen University that discovered a graphic image and 274 links to content depicting child abuse stored within the Bitcoin blockchain.

The Legal Dilemma: SESTA-FOSTA and Network Participant Responsibility

The core question is not just about technology but about law. The US Congress passed the controversial SESTA-FOSTA, a law aimed at punishing internet service providers and other internet users for any illegal content they share – even if they are unaware of or did not intend to share it.

Before SESTA-FOSTA, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provided protections for ISPs and network users from such liability. But the new law has opened a new territorial debate: if your computer is part of the Bitcoin network, and that network stores content related to children, can you be legally liable?

The crypto community is deeply divided on this issue. Ethereum developer Vlad Zamfir posted a Twitter poll asking: “Would you stop running your full node if you found illegal content about children encoded on the blockchain?” Only 15% of 2,300 respondents answered yes – a testament that most of the community does not believe they are legally liable for such content.

However, legal experts are calling for deeper reflection. According to Aaron Wright, a professor at Cardozo Law School and chair of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance’s Legal Industry Working Group: “This is part of the tension between the difficult task of changing data structures, the blockchain, and the legal requirements in certain jurisdictions. In the U.S., it could even be considered as facilitating child pornography.”

Blockchain Stores Illegal Content: How Does This Happen?

A key understanding here is how such content is actually embedded in the blockchain. It’s not just a simple PDF or video you can view. Instead, illegal content is encoded and stored as encrypted links left alongside all other data within a transaction.

Due to the nature of the decentralized ledger, this content remains there indefinitely. There is no central administrator who can remove it, no “delete” button. This is one of the inherent contradictions of this technology – we have created a system that is immutable, yet now face situations where we might want to modify or delete certain information.

Coin Center, a non-profit based in Washington D.C., explains: “A copy of the blockchain does not contain the literal content of paragraphs or images, but rather random strings of text that, if one knows where they are, can be decoded back into their original form.”

Experts Speak: Should We Worry About Our Nodes?

Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan spoke out against what he called the mainstream media’s “superficial” response. He said: “First, law is not an algorithm. Intent is a crucial factor in determining legality.”

This is a critical point. Most laws regarding the distribution of illegal content require knowledge and intent – meaning, you must know what you are doing and do it deliberately. If you are a random node operator with no idea what data is hidden inside the blockchain, it’s hard to accept that you are criminally liable.

But this raises another question: how do we determine who intentionally carries such content? The pseudonymous nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult for law enforcement to trace responsible parties.

Is There a Solution?: Encryption and Other Approaches Developers Are Considering

Developers are not standing still. Cornell University professor Emin Gun Sirer suggests that standard cryptocurrency software lacks tools to decode content from the blockchain. Bitcoin developer Matt Corallo points out that encryption could be one solution: “If having such information in encrypted form is acceptable, then simple encryption of data could solve the problem.”

Other technical approaches are also being considered:

• Network participants could choose not to download content from suspicious transactions
• Nodes could prune the blockchain and only store “hashes and side effects”
• Developers could create filtering mechanisms

But, as Corallo notes, clearer legal guidelines are needed before developers can move forward. “There needs to be more clarity on what exactly is illegal before developers can address these issues,” he says.

The Deeper Question

Ultimately, this issue is not just about children and pornography – it’s about the fundamental tension between decentralized, uncensorable technology and the societal norms we want to uphold. Europe faces a similar challenge through the “right to be forgotten,” while the US wrestles with the implications of such content.

One can be a supporter of Bitcoin and decentralized ledger technology while deeply concerned about the risk that such an immutable system could be used to store extremely harmful content with no way to remove it.

This is not a problem with a quick fix. The crypto community must find a balance between decentralization and responsibility, between immutability and the need to make morally defensible decisions when children are involved.