According to @BitMEXResearch, individual non-economic relaying nodes can significantly influence Bitcoin when they loosen relay policies, whereas attempts by such nodes to tighten relay policies tend to matter less for network behavior (source: @BitMEXResearch). Bitcoin Core defines standardness and relay policy rules that govern which transactions are propagated, so looser relay increases the set of transactions reaching mempools and miners, directly linking relay policy to transaction propagation and inclusion chances (source: Bitcoin Core policy documentation). For traders, changes that broaden relay can alter mempool composition and feerate competition, impacting short-term BTC confirmation probabilities and fee volatility to monitor during intraday execution (source: Bitcoin Core mining and mempool documentation). Practical signals include tracking mempool size and median feerates on public explorers to detect propagation shifts that affect execution costs and timing (source: mempool.space dashboard).

According to BitMEX Research, when Bitcoin nodes materially disagree on transaction relay rules, the less stringent and incentive-compatible relay policy tends to prevail across the network. Source: BitMEX Research on X, Sep 18, 2025, x.com/BitMEXResearch/status/1968746527414780015 For traders, the practical takeaway is that transaction propagation and inclusion likelihoods will align with policies that relay a broader set of transactions when such policies match miner incentives, shaping which transactions reach miners during policy disputes. Source: BitMEX Research on X, Sep 18, 2025, x.com/BitMEXResearch/status/1968746527414780015; Bitcoin Core release notes and policy documentation on transaction relay and mempool behavior, bitcoincore.org/en/releases/ and github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin