BIP-110 Heads Into August Deadline With Miner Support at Zero

The proposal to temporarily ban arbitrary Bitcoin data hits its mandatory window around August 7 with near-zero backing and two of Bitcoin's most prominent voices publicly opposed.

Key takeaways

• BIP-110 miner signaling stands at 0% in the current difficulty period and has never exceeded roughly 1% cumulatively since May 1, with no major mining pool behind it, per the BIP-110 signaling monitor.
• Michael Saylor and Adam Back both posted opposition on July 11, warning that converting a spam dispute into a consensus rule sets a more dangerous precedent than the spam itself.
• Without a major pool crossing the 55% signaling threshold before block 961,632 (projected around August 7), BIP-110 produces a minority chain, not a protocol change for Bitcoin.

BIP-110, formally titled the Reduced Data Temporary Soft Fork, is heading into its mandatory signaling window in early August with miner support at zero in the current difficulty period and cumulative backing that never broke 1% of hashrate since May. The proposal, which would cap OP_RETURN at 83 bytes, restrict arbitrary data pushes above 256 bytes, and limit certain script formats for one year, has the math working hard against it and two of Bitcoin's most recognizable names now publicly on the other side.

What BIP-110 Would Do

The proposal targets the same data-carrying paths that Ordinals and inscriptions use to embed images, text, and token metadata into Bitcoin blocks. Supporters argue it would refocus block space on payments and reduce node burden. Critics argue it reclassifies currently valid, fee-paying transactions as invalid by consensus rule, and that distinction matters enormously.

BIP-110 was first circulated as BIP-444 and formally assigned its current number in December 2025. It was authored under the pseudonym "Dathon Ohm," with Luke Dashjr credited for advice on the original draft. Rather than requiring the traditional 95% miner signaling threshold, it uses a user-activated soft fork mechanism set to 55%, meaning nodes enforce the rule whether or not miners agree, as long as 55% of miners signal.

The mandatory signaling window opens at block 961,632, projected around August 7. Lock-in no later than block 963,648, with activation projected around September 1. The rules expire automatically roughly one year after activation.

Peak cumulative signaling since May 1 reached approximately 0.31 to 0.42% of hashrate, around 5 EH/s against a network total near 940 EH/s. The first signaling block was mined by Barefoot Mining via Ocean Pool on March 1. No major pool has followed. Node adoption sits in the low single digits, carried almost entirely by Bitcoin Knots; Bitcoin Core has not endorsed the proposal and the submitted implementation has not been merged.

The Precedent Is the Real Fight

On July 11, Michael Saylor posted his objection directly:

"There are 110 things more dangerous to Bitcoin than spam. BIP 110 turns a spam dispute into a consensus change that would invalidate some currently valid, fee-paying transactions. That precedent is the danger. We should save our energy for threats that really matter."

Adam Back, whose hashcash design is cited in the Bitcoin white paper, addressed supporters of the proposal directly, saying "Bitcoin respectfully says no to what you want," and that their recourse is to fork away, but that "bitcoin won't be joining it."

Both objections land on the same point: the spam concern is real, but the proposed remedy is worse. Encoding a spam definition into consensus means any future actor with a sympathetic use case (a sanctions filter, a content moderation rule) has a UASF-at-55% playbook to point to. The reason BIP-110 is failing is also the reason that future attempt would fail. Bitcoin changes when thousands of independent operators each opt in. That distributed veto is not a bug.

The miner silence is worth noting separately. Ordinals and Runes generate fee revenue. Miner non-participation in BIP-110 is not purely ideological; it is rational self-interest expressed through proof-of-work. Incentives did the work here.

Peter Todd also demonstrated the proposal's bypassability by embedding the full BIP-110 text into a compliant transaction, a pointed illustration that motivated actors can route around the restrictions even if they were enforced.

What Happens in August

If no major mining pool (Foundry, AntPool, F2Pool, Binance Pool) begins signaling before block 961,632, BIP-110 cannot reach its 55% threshold and lock-in cannot occur. Nodes running BIP-110 software, primarily Bitcoin Knots, would begin rejecting non-signaling blocks after activation, placing themselves on a slower minority chain. The main chain, carrying the overwhelming majority of hashrate and running Bitcoin Core, continues without interruption. Exchange and custodian operations on the main chain are unaffected.

The falsifiable version of this: if a major pool switches on BIP-110 signaling before August 7 and node adoption crosses double digits with exchange acknowledgment, the minority-chain scenario becomes a genuine network disruption. Watch the BIP-110 signaling monitor for any step-change in daily block signaling over the next three weeks. Nothing in the current data suggests that reversal is coming.

Sources

• BIP-110 specification and signaling monitor
• Michael Saylor (@saylor), X, July 11, 2026
• Adam Back (@adam3us), X, July 11, 2026
• First reported by CoinDesk (Shaurya Malwa, July 12, 2026)