Bitcoin "civil war" over? BIP-110 hostile takeover attempt, currently supporting less than 1% of hash power.

Bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto Chairman and BTC Inc CEO David Bailey stated that the so-called "hostile takeover" campaign behind BIP-110 has failed, with its proponents failing to secure even 1% hashrate support.
(Previous context: The Soul War of Bitcoin: First Block Supporting BIP-110 Mined, On-Chain Data Restrictions Deepen Divisions)
(Background supplement: Do you agree that the BIP-110 protocol is a prerequisite for Bitcoin reaching $1 million?)

Table of Contents

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• What is BIP-110?
• Cannot Even Secure 1% Hashrate
• Opposition Voice: Dashjr Says "If BIP-110 Fails, Bitcoin Fails Too"
• Ordinals Already Has Workarounds, Technically Hard to Block
• Bailey's Own Acknowledged Concerns
• Governance Lessons: Economic Weight Determines Consensus, Industry Must Catch Up

David Bailey, Chairman of Bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto and CEO of BTC Inc (parent company of Bitcoin Magazine), posted on X yesterday (4th) stating that a multi-year campaign he described as a "hostile takeover" — the BIP-110 proposal — has failed, calling it an "extremely bullish" signal for Bitcoin.

Bailey characterized this campaign as an information war led by "Bitcoin's most eccentric developer," widely interpreted to refer to Luke Dashjr, the maintainer of the Bitcoin Knots client and founder of Ocean mining pool.

In his post, he listed a long series of accusations: the opponent launched a mining pool, released a competing Bitcoin client, initiated a coercive UASF (User Activated Soft Fork), set an unprecedented 55% activation threshold, used network-layer Sybil attacks to create a false impression of node consensus, deployed anonymous sock puppet accounts, mobilized the community to flood the Core mailing list and GitHub, engaged in malicious and defamatory attacks against industry figures... even spread child pornography allegations, forcing at least one Core developer to resign and many others to withdraw.

It’s incredibly bullish for Bitcoin that the hostile takeover attempt known as BIP-110 failed.

This attack was a multi-year campaign of information warfare led by Bitcoin’s most eccentric developer. It involved launching a mining pool, a competing Bitcoin client, a coercive…

— David Bailey🇵🇷 $2.0mm/btc is the floor (@DavidFBailey) July 3, 2026

What is BIP-110?

BIP-110 is a soft fork proposal that aims to restrict non-financial arbitrary data storage on the Bitcoin blockchain, such as Ordinals inscriptions, attempting to pull Bitcoin back to being a "pure monetary network." The proposal uses a UASF mechanism, originally scheduled to enter a mandatory signaling period between August 7 and 15, 2026 (approximately block height 961,632), and would be locked in if 55% miner hashrate signaling is achieved early.

However, Bailey pointed out that despite this "coup-level" mobilization, the attackers still haven't secured even 1% hashrate.

According to on-chain data, of the 9,066 blocks mined since May 1, 2026, only 38 blocks signaled support for BIP-110, a ratio of about 0.42%, and in terms of hashrate, only about 0.31%. The first signaling block was mined by Ocean pool in March of the same year, and no major mining pool has followed since.

Cannot Even Secure 1% Hashrate

Bailey believes that the UASF during the 2017 SegWit debate, BIP148, proved that miners cannot act independently of social consensus; the dismal signaling for BIP-110 conversely proves that economic weight is the key force shaping social consensus, and Bitcoin's governance never belonged to "retail investors," but to the sum of all stakeholders: individual users, miners, industry, and developers.

Opposition Voice: Dashjr Says "If BIP-110 Fails, Bitcoin Fails Too"

Of course, Luke Dashjr from the opposing side sees it differently.

He has publicly stated, "If BIP-110 fails, Bitcoin will also fail," and repeatedly warned that if Bitcoin is allowed to be used as an unrestricted data layer, the chain will eventually become an "unregulated central bank digital currency (CBDC)." The essence of this debate is whether Bitcoin should be positioned as a pure monetary network or a permissionless open ledger where anyone can write data. Both sides have yet to reach a consensus.

Ordinals Already Has Workarounds, Technically Hard to Block

On July 2, programmer lifofifoX released an Ordinals update that splits large files into multiple fragments smaller than the BIP-110 limit, thus circumventing the new rules; Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor has already verified this change on GitHub. This means that even if BIP-110 were implemented, it would likely be difficult to truly block data writing in practice.

Bailey's Own Acknowledged Concerns

Notably, Bailey did not claim this victory came without cost. He admitted that this conflict exposed the fragility of Bitcoin Core's coordination mechanism, noting that the community's current communication channels rely too heavily on Twitter and need better solutions.

He also stated that this is the first time Bitcoin has faced an information war amplified by "AI-generated garbage," which is extremely hard to refute: it easily reinforces confirmation bias, erases the nuance of key details, and a cheap, casually typed prompt often requires hundreds of times more time and effort to clarify. He admitted, "I don't know how to deal with this problem in the long term." He also estimated that this multi-year conflict has likely consumed over a million hours of the community's time, energy, and cohesion.

Governance Lessons: Economic Weight Determines Consensus, Industry Must Catch Up

Looking ahead, Bailey believes that once BIP-110 supporters choose to fork away, this resource drain will stop; the less-than-1% supporters will destroy their own credibility, effectively self-selecting out of the network, allowing Core to operate more efficiently. This also reminds a new generation of Core developers that technical strength ultimately outweighs moral posturing.

He also called on the crypto industry to take its role in consensus formation seriously and to participate more actively in Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) discussions. All stakeholders must "dance this tango together," otherwise Bitcoin will eventually become ossified.