Leonidas’ DOG Mode client has thrust Bitcoin’s long-running governance tussle back into the conversation, explicitly challenging default relay policies that determine which transactions get passed along the network. The move reopens a philosophical wound that never fully healed: does the network run on a free market, or does it operate under a set of enforced, community-chosen standards? According to the original report, DOG Mode refuses to play by the existing relay rulebook, a choice that could splinter mempool behavior and unsettle the assumptions miners and full nodes rely on every day.