Bitcoin’s BIP 110 proposal is careening toward its deadline with exactly zero miner support. Yes, zero. And that’s not a rounding error. This isn’t a close vote; it’s a graveyard. The proposal—which would slap a one-year cap on arbitrary data inscriptions like Ordinals—has become a lightning rod for a deeper question: should Bitcoin’s community use a contentious soft fork to police spam, or would that cure be worse than the disease?
Look, I get the frustration. Since early 2023, Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens have clogged Bitcoin’s blockspace, pushing fees higher for ordinary transactions. Purists call it graffiti. Miners love the extra revenue. But the idea of forcing through a protocol change to ban certain data types—even temporarily—has drawn a rare coalition of opposition from both sides of the ideological aisle.
Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy’s executive chairman and Bitcoin’s biggest corporate cheerleader, called the proposal a ‘dangerous precedent’ in a recent tweetstorm. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream and a cypherpunk OG, warned that turning a spam dispute into a consensus war could fracture the network. Their message: don’t sacrifice Bitcoin’s greatest asset—immutable, apolitical consensus—for a short-term fix.
The BIP 110 Proposal: A Cure Worse Than the Disease?
BIP 110, introduced by a pseudonymous developer in late 2024, aims to cap ‘arbitrary data’—think images, text, and executable code embedded via OP_RETURN or witness data—at 10% of block weight for one year. Proponents argue it’s a necessary circuit breaker to preserve Bitcoin’s original use case: peer-to-peer electronic cash. They point to average transaction fees spiking above $30 during Ordinals mania in December 2024, pricing out small users.
But critics counter that the proposal is a kludge. It doesn’t define ‘arbitrary data’ cleanly, leaving interpretation to miners and node operators—a recipe for exactly the kind of subjectivity Bitcoin was designed to avoid. ‘You can’t just ban data you don’t like without creating a slippery slope,’ said Maya Hutchinson, a protocol researcher at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. ‘What stops tomorrow’s coalition from banning privacy tools or certain smart contract patterns?’
That fear isn’t abstract. The IMF’s recent warning on dollar stablecoins highlights how regulatory overreach—even well-intentioned—can destabilize markets. If Bitcoin’s own community starts acting like a central planner, the credibility that took 15 years to build evaporates overnight.
Why Miner Support Is Stuck at Zero Percent
As of this week, zero percent of signaled mining pools have publicly backed BIP 110. Not even a symbolic thumbs-up. The largest pools—Foundry USA, Antpool, F2Pool—are all silent or opposed. Why? Simple economics. Ordinals have been a windfall. In Q4 2024, transaction fees accounted for 18% of total miner revenue, up from 2% in early 2023. A cap on data-heavy transactions would slash that revenue stream.
But it’s not just greed. Miners also fear a chain split. If BIP 110 activates with less than, say, 90% hash rate support, a minority chain could linger—like Bitcoin Cash after 2017’s block size war. That scenario would confuse users, spook exchanges, and likely trigger a selloff. ‘A contentious fork is the last thing Bitcoin needs when institutional adoption is finally accelerating,’ said Jameson Lopp, a Bitcoin infrastructure engineer and early contributor to Bitcoin Core. ‘We’ve been through this before. It’s never pretty.’
The deadline for signaling is March 15, 2025—just two weeks away. Without a sudden reversal, BIP 110 is dead in the water. But the debate it sparked isn’t going away.
The Spam Problem That Won’t Die
Ordinals aren’t going anywhere. Inscriptions have dropped from their mid-2024 peak of 1.2 million per month to roughly 400,000 in February 2025, but they still dominate block space. The question is whether Bitcoin can evolve to handle both transactions and data without breaking its core promises.
Some propose technical alternatives: fee markets that naturally price out low-value spam, or layer-2 solutions like Lightning Network that batch transactions off-chain. Others argue that the market already has a solution—high fees during congestion force users to prioritize, and that’s fine. ‘Bitcoin is a settlement layer,’ said Lyn Alden, a macro analyst and author. ‘It’s okay if it’s expensive to use directly, as long as the second layers are cheap. The Ordinals are actually stress-testing those layers.’
Meanwhile, the broader crypto ecosystem is watching closely. A similar debate is playing out in Ethereum over blobspace allocation. And the Apple–OpenAI lawsuit reminds us that even tech giants can’t agree on intellectual property boundaries—imagine trying to define ‘arbitrary data’ in a legally binding soft fork.
What Happens Next? The Fork That Wasn’t
Barring a miracle, BIP 110 expires unactivated. But the movement behind it—driven by Bitcoin maxis who see Ordinals as pollution—isn’t going to vanish. They may push for a more aggressive hard fork in 2026, or lobby for changes at the application layer (like wallet filters). Either way, the Bitcoin community has been put on notice: governance by consensus is a feature, not a bug.
If anything, this episode reinforces something crucial: Bitcoin’s strength lies in its inertia. Changing the rules requires near-unanimity. That frustrates those who want immediate fixes, but it’s also why the asset has survived a decade of attacks. As the deadline passes, expect a quiet sigh of relief from miners, a grumble from anti-Ordinal activists, and a return to business as usual—until the next battle.
For now, the real risk isn’t a fork. It’s that the debate itself erodes confidence among the very institutions Fidelity’s new Bitcoin ETF fee aims to attract. A divided community gives regulators ammunition. Let’s hope the adults in the room remember that.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is BIP 110 exactly?
BIP 110 proposes a one-year soft fork that would cap ‘arbitrary data’ (like Ordinal inscriptions) to 10% of Bitcoin block weight. It aims to reduce congestion and fees but has drawn fierce opposition for potentially setting a precedent of censorship.
Why do miners oppose it?
Miners profit from the higher fees that Ordinals generate—transaction fees now make up nearly 20% of revenue. Capping data would slash that. Plus, any contentious fork risks a chain split, which could destabilize the network and hurt miner profitability.
What happens if the deadline passes without support?
BIP 110 will expire and not activate. The status quo remains: Ordinals continue to use blockspace, fees fluctuate with demand, and the community will likely explore non-protocol solutions like layer-2 scaling or wallet-level filters.
