Key Insights:
- Bitcoin BIP-110 faced opposition from Michael Saylor and Adam Back.
- The proposal would temporarily restrict non-monetary transaction data.
- Weak miner signaling raised concerns about a divided network.
Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream Chief Executive Officer Adam Back opposed Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110) on Saturday. They argued that its temporary transaction restrictions could weaken Bitcoin’s neutral settlement rules and damage network credibility.
The Bitcoin BIP-100 dispute placed Bitcoin’s monetary focus against its permissionless design. Supporters wanted consensus rules limiting arbitrary data. Opponents favored market-based blockspace allocation and predictable transaction validity.
The disagreement also tested Bitcoin’s governance model. No central authority can impose software adoption. However, incompatible validation rules can divide miners, exchanges, wallets, and users.
Bitcoin BIP-110 Draws Senior Industry Opposition
Saylor said BIP-110 converted a spam dispute into a consensus intervention affecting valid, fee-paying transactions. His July 11 X post warned that the precedent could present greater danger than blockchain spam itself.
Adam Back framed the issue around Bitcoin’s cypherpunk design rather than Bitcoin Ordinals alone. In a Saturday X post, he described BIP-110 as an attempt to police other users’ activity.
The Blockstream chief said decentralization prevented participants from imposing preferred uses on others. His argument treated transaction neutrality as part of Bitcoin’s censorship resistance.
Their opposition did not amount to support for Ordinals. Instead, both executives argued that consensus restrictions created broader risks than the activity they targeted.
Bitcoin BIP-110 Would Restrict Data Temporarily
The official Bitcoin Improvement Proposal repository listed BIP-110 as the “Reduced Data Temporary Softfork.” Pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm authored the proposal, assigned on Dec. 3, 2025.
The specification would apply seven additional consensus rules during a one-year deployment. Those rules would limit output scripts, data pushes, Taproot annexes, control blocks, and selected Tapscript functions.
The proposal would cap most new output scripts at 34 bytes. It would permit OP_RETURN outputs up to 83 bytes, and data pushes up to 256 bytes.
Ohm’s proposal said those limits would reduce arbitrary data storage and protect Bitcoin’s monetary function. It also acknowledged possible effects on advanced contracts, Miniscript constructions, and some presigned transactions.
The specification grandfathered unspent transaction outputs created before activation. However, it stated that rare scenarios could result in funds created and spent during deployment being frozen or lost.
That disclosure supported Michael Saylor’s criticism of transaction validity. Yet BIP-110’s authors argued that the proposal preserved known monetary uses and limited restrictions to one year.
The BIP-110 Signaling Remained Weak
BIP-110 used a modified Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 9 deployment process. Its specification set an early lock-in threshold at 1,109 of 2,016 blocks, equal to 55%.
The document also scheduled mandatory signaling between blocks 961,632 and 963,647. Nodes enforcing BIP-110 would reject non-signaling blocks during that window.
The proposal targeted activation by block 965,664, projected around Sept. 1, 2026. Enforcement would expire after 52,416 blocks, roughly one year later.
BGeometrics data showed miner signaling remained far below the early threshold through June. Its June 10 report recorded two to four supportive blocks on several recent days.
Later block-period data showed about 1% support during period 475. That period covered blocks 955,584 through 957,599, leaving the proposal far from voluntary lock-in.
Low miner support did not remove chain divergence risks. BIP-110 nodes could reject blocks that non-enforcing Bitcoin nodes accept during mandatory signaling.
Bitcoin Ordinals Decline Weakened Urgency Case
Dune Analytics data showed daily Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions stayed below 10,000 during the previous month. That level sat far below the activity recorded during the 2023 inscription surge.
Historical Dune data recorded over 422,000 inscriptions on July 30, 2023. The decline weakened claims that current activity required immediate restrictions on consensus.
Supporters focused on structural risks rather than present transaction counts. The BIP text argued miners received fees while node operators carried permanent storage and bandwidth costs.
Luke Dashjr supported the proposal and rejected calls for withdrawal. In a July X post, he said miners had months to prepare and described Bitcoin as facing grave risk.
The next test begins near block 961,632 and is projected for August 2026. Miner behavior and node enforcement will determine whether BIP-110 produces temporary filtering or a wider consensus split.
