Bitcoin Is Not Fully Trustless, Says Nick Szabo. Source: Image by Eivind Pedersen from Pixabay

American computer scientist and legal scholar Nick Szabo is challenging a long-held belief in the crypto community: that Bitcoin is completely trustless. In a recent social media post, Szabo explained that calling Bitcoin “trustless” is misleading, arguing instead that the network is trust-minimized. While Bitcoin removes the need for a central authority to maintain the ledger, users still depend on several assumptions for the system to function as intended.

According to Szabo, Bitcoin users must trust that core developers maintain the protocol responsibly and avoid introducing harmful changes. Network participants must also adhere to consensus rules for the blockchain to operate smoothly. Beyond technical factors, there’s an unavoidable reliance on legal and social conditions that allow Bitcoin to exist without being forcibly shut down.

Szabo warns that no cryptocurrency is immune to its “legal attack surface,” a concept referring to the ways governments or private organizations could use laws and regulations to restrict or disrupt crypto networks. Potential actions include banning exchanges, prohibiting Bitcoin transactions, or imposing strict compliance mandates. While Bitcoin’s layer-1 blockchain is far more resilient than centralized systems, Szabo stresses that it cannot withstand every possible form of legal pressure.

He also highlighted concerns about arbitrary data stored on the blockchain—such as ordinals—which could increase regulatory risks by attracting unwanted attention or complicating Bitcoin’s legal classification. Szabo believes the broader crypto industry lacks sufficient legal and technical expertise to navigate these evolving threats effectively.

To safeguard Bitcoin’s trust-minimized design, he argues that the ecosystem needs vigilant developers, knowledgeable legal professionals, and a community that understands the complexities of regulation and protocol governance. Without this combination, the belief that Bitcoin can endure any governmental or legal challenge becomes unrealistic.