With approval ratings below 1%, will BIP-110 still “arrogantly” push Bitcoin toward a soft fork?

Original | Odaily Planet Daily

Author | Golem

As the August mandatory window period approaches, discussions about the BIP-110 proposal have once again become heated.

BIP-110 was proposed by Dathon Ohm in December 2025 and received support from Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr. The proposal aims to restrict arbitrary/non-currency data in Bitcoin transactions over the next year, mainly targeting large data storage such as Ordinals and Bitcoin NFTs, with the goal of reducing “spam transactions” on the network and allowing Bitcoin to focus on its monetary function.

There has been controversy ever since the proposal was introduced, but judging from the data, BIP-110 is currently not supported by mainstream miners and nodes. The activation threshold for BIP-110 is 55%. According to statistics, the miner support rate is currently below 1%. Out of 102,674 nodes across the network, only 15,035 nodes are willing to execute BIP-110, representing 14.64%.

BIP-110 miner and node support rates

In general, proposals with such a low support rate cannot pass on the Bitcoin network. But the “bold” point of BIP-110 is that even if it cannot reach consensus, nodes supporting BIP110 will still forcibly execute it. If, by the time the block height reaches 961632, BIP-110 has not reached the 55% activation threshold, it will enter the mandatory window period (block height 961632–963647). During this period, nodes running BIP-110 will reject non-compliant blocks, forcibly pushing the acceptance rate to 100%, so that BIP-110 can ultimately be forcibly activated at block height 965664.

Based on the current Bitcoin block production rate, BIP-110 will enter the mandatory window period in early August. This means that although BIP-110 is a soft fork proposal, by then the Bitcoin network will also experience a chain split (a minority chain supporting BIP-110 and the main chain not supporting BIP-110).

BIP-110 controversy continues

According to Bitcoin’s “longest chain rule,” only when the actual mining hash power supporting BIP-100 is in the majority (>50%) will they become the longest chain, and only then will the entire network converge on the new rules—meaning the soft fork succeeds. Therefore, although the outcome of BIP-110 being forcibly activated is essentially a foregone conclusion, whether it can endure ultimately still depends on consensus; otherwise, BIP-110 will end up like the vast majority of Bitcoin soft fork outcomes in history: natural death.

Pro side: BIP-110 is not change, but a denial of change

The main representatives of the BIP-110 supporters are Luke Dashjr and the mining pool Ocean under his wing. Luke Dashjr has long been an aggressive figure in the Bitcoin developer community who opposes BRC-20 and inscriptions. He also provided draft proposal suggestions for the BIP-110 proposal.

Luke Dashjr is regarded as a representative of Bitcoin fundamentalism. They do not want Bitcoin block space to be used for anything other than Bitcoin transfers. In the BIP-110 proposal, the inscriptions that appeared in 2022 are treated as a “Bitcoin attack,” because if arbitrary data is allowed to be embedded in Bitcoin transactions, it would impose a huge and unnecessary burden on nodes. At the same time, these “junk data” would also occupy a large amount of block space, forcing monetary transactions to raise the bidding threshold in order to be included in blocks, squeezing out Bitcoin’s monetary use.

Therefore, Luke Dashjr posted on the X platform saying that BIP-110 is not a transformation, but a rejection of transformation. When facing opponents of BIP-110, he also fully played the role of a master of sophistry: on the one hand, he claimed that BIP-110 has no hostility and does not force anyone to accept it; on the other hand, he said that whoever opposes BIP-110 is the real Bitcoin attacker.

And although the current miner voting rate in favor of BIP-110 is very low (<1%), Luke Dashjr is still optimistic, believing that the miner voting rate directly opposing BIP-110 is also almost 0. The implication is that miners are not the ones making the decision; once BIP-110 is activated, they will follow along.

From reality so far, the only mining pool publicly supporting BIP-110 is Ocean, which belongs to Luke Dashjr himself. F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun publicly stated as early as February that he would never support BIP-110. Under Luke Dashjr’s post, Luke Dashjr replied confidently: “Then you will mine invalid blocks and lose all rewards.”

According to miningradar data, F2Pool is the third-largest Bitcoin mining pool on the network, with a hash power share of 13.6%; while Ocean’s current hash power is only 24.6EH/S, accounting for 2.6% of the network’s hash power.

Bitcoin mining pool rankings

If Ocean is ultimately the only mining pool that supports the split, then each day they can only produce 3-5 blocks. Such work efficiency and block production speed cannot make them the “longest chain” on the Bitcoin network.

Opponents: BIP-110 does not solve the problem, and instead creates more new ones

The opponents of the BIP-110 proposal are not only focused on whether it will succeed after activation, but also criticize that it cannot solve the “spam transactions” problem existing on the Bitcoin network, while also creating many potential new problems. In short, the reason opponents are still strongly against BIP-110 is concern about many unintended consequences, not any attachment to Ordinals or inscriptions. The key figures among the opponents are crypto-punk pioneer Adam Back, Bitcoin core developer Jameson Lopp, and Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy.

First, opponents believe that BIP-110 cannot fully resolve the “spam transactions” problem that the Bitcoin network faces. The author of the BIP-110 proposal also admits that it can only temporarily mitigate it. Jameson Lopp believes that Bitcoin’s block size limit and the bidding market for block space have already mitigated the spam problem to some extent. But Bitcoin has remained a target of various spam transaction attacks mainly because almost nobody truly uses the Bitcoin network, so transaction fees have stayed low—meaning there is not enough fee pressure to suppress most spam transactions.

At the same time, BIP-110 would also stifle future innovation in Bitcoin. The BIP-110 proposal also acknowledges that restrictions on Taproot would hinder advanced features or complex contracts such as BitVM from being implemented on the Bitcoin network. Although BIP-110 is described as a temporary restriction lasting for one year, Jameson Lopp believes this is just Luke Dashjr’s delaying tactic. If these restrictions severely constrain future upgrades to Bitcoin, it could potentially lead to a Bitcoin hard fork rather than a soft fork.

Adam Back is even more focused on Bitcoin’s anti-censorship and decentralization spirit. He believes that BIP-110 would subjectively censor transactions in blocks, and that the fundamental purpose is to regulate others. This goes against the neutrality and anti-censorship spirit that Bitcoin has adhered to since its inception. Adam Back uses Bitcoin fundamentalism to deny the “change” of Bitcoin transformation proposed by Bitcoin extremists, and in a way, it is “magic defeating magic.”

Michael Saylor uses a “Bitcoin Iatrogenic Proposal” to summarize BIP-110, implying that this “treatment plan” itself would harm Bitcoin rather than solve the existing problems.

Moreover, Michael Saylor believes that if BIP-110 were turned into consensus, some valid paid transactions would become invalid, and setting such a censorship precedent is where the real danger lies.

Another most serious consequence that opponents worry about is that after BIP-110 is activated, it may split Bitcoin’s chain ecosystem. At that time, two competing chains would vie for the status of “true Bitcoin.” In such a situation, because the fork outcome is uncertain, it could create a risk of Bitcoin double-spends. Even if it does not cause double-spends, if BIP-110 ultimately evolves into a new chain, it would split Bitcoin’s developer resources, hash power resources, and monetary consensus.

Opponents believe that BIP-110 is trying to use technical means to solve a cultural problem, and in the end will create more problems that are unpredictable.

Even though they worry, opponents are still full of confidence that BIP-110 will fail. As early as February, Jameson Lopp placed a bet on BIP-110 with a wager of at least 1 BTC, and to this day, no BIP-110 supporter has publicly accepted the bet.

Jameson Lopp’s invitation of a bet to BIP-110 supporters

On the prediction market Predyx, the probability that “BIP-110 will be activated and forcibly executed on Bitcoin between September 1 and 7, 2026” is 10%. The condition for settling “Yes” is that the BIP-110 chain becomes the “Bitcoin longest chain” and is accepted by most nodes.

What will happen after BIP-110 is activated?

We can now make some assumptions about hypothetical scenarios—what would happen when BIP-110 is finally forcibly activated at block height 965664 (late August to early September).

The first scenario is as described above: once the activation height is reached, BIP-110 nodes will reject blocks on the main chain, but there will not be enough miners producing new blocks that comply with the BIP-110 rules. As a result, BIP-110’s block production speed will become extremely slow, and eventually block production will stop and no longer “grow.”

The second scenario is that a certain proportion of miners support BIP-110. BIP-110 supporters claim they have an “asymmetric advantage,” because the rules of BIP-110 are stricter. Therefore, although BIP-110 nodes will reject blocks that include invalid data (such as inscriptions), non-BIP-110 nodes (mainstream Core nodes) will treat blocks produced by BIP-110 nodes as valid.

Moreover, currently in Bitcoin block space, the proportion of inscription transactions has fallen to 5%; over 95% is still traditional Bitcoin transfer transactions. BIP-110 nodes can still receive a large number of mainstream blocks. That is why Luke Dashjr believes that BIP-110 will ultimately become the “longest chain” and unify the network.

Share of different transaction types in Bitcoin block space

The third scenario is that a certain proportion of miners support BIP-110, but their hash power is still unable to surpass the existing majority chain. Typically, miners are extremely rational. Once their machines are running, they begin consuming electricity costs. In the competition between two chains, miners will weigh the pros and cons. Miners on the BIP-110 chain are more likely to abandon sunk costs (mining rewards on the minority chain) and join the majority chain, because the minority chain not only lags behind in chain length, but the accumulated Bitcoin rewards are also not as much as those on the majority chain. In the end, it becomes the first scenario.

So, if we assume Luke Dashjr’s influence is extremely strong and miners stop being rational and continue mining on the BIP-110 chain, what would happen? This chain would continue to operate independently for a long time, but the block time would likely be very slow. Miners would almost completely be “mining out of passion,” carrying out meaningless energy consumption. The most reasonable outcome in this case would be that under BIP-110 supporters, the BIP-110 chain permanently forks into an independent chain—“manually” adjusting the block difficulty and launching a new network token.

However, Luke Dashjr has emphasized multiple times that he refuses a BIP-110 hard fork. He believes it is not yet time to use hard fork methods. A boat can both carry water and also capsize—it is just that at that point, Luke Dashjr may also be swept along by the will of the people, and with the arrow on the bowstring, he will have no choice but to set sail.

Therefore, the minority chain run by BIP-110 supporters can technically continue running, but it is also very likely not to thrive, because it depends on economic and ecosystem factors, including support from wallets, exchanges, users, and so on. There are many real examples of this on the Bitcoin network; most eventually fail. Even if one succeeds, the highest ceiling is only on independent coins such as BCH and BSV.