Bitcoin is arguing with itself again. On the surface, the fight is about BIP 110, a proposal to temporarily restrict how much extra data people can attach to Bitcoin transactions. But underneath that fight is a bigger question: who actually gets to decide what Bitcoin is for?
What BIP 110 Would Do
BIP 110 is a “soft fork,” a change to Bitcoin’s rules that makes some previously valid transactions invalid going forward. It’s a proposal, not yet an active rule.
It would shrink the size of new transaction outputs, cap certain data fields at small byte limits, and block a few advanced script features for about a year. The goal is to make it harder to store non-payment data, like images or text, inside Bitcoin transactions. Supporters call this data “inscriptions.” Critics of inscriptions call it spam.
The rule would only apply going forward. Data already stored on the blockchain stays untouched.
Saylor’s Case Against It
Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of Strategy (the company with the largest corporate Bitcoin holding), published a long essay titled “110 Reasons BIP 110 Is a Bad Idea.”
He doesn’t defend spam or inscriptions themselves. His concern is narrower: should Bitcoin change its core rules to block a category of transaction just because some people don’t like what it’s used for?
Saylor’s central worry is precedent. He wrote that BIP 110 “turns a spam dispute into a consensus change that would invalidate some currently valid, fee-paying transactions,” calling that precedent the real danger.
His view: once Bitcoin accepts that consensus can be changed to suppress a disfavored use, that tool can be pointed at other things later. Today it’s inscriptions. Tomorrow it could be something else entirely.
He also argues Bitcoin already has tools for this. Fees make people pay for block space. Nodes (the computers that verify transactions) can already choose which unconfirmed transactions to accept or relay. Miners can choose what to include in blocks. None of that requires rewriting the rules for everyone.
Who’s on The Other Side
Not everyone agrees. Luke Dashjr, a longtime Bitcoin developer connected to BIP 110’s drafting, argues inscriptions exploit loopholes rather than use Bitcoin as intended.
His concern is technical: more non-payment data means bigger blocks, which raises the cost of running a full node. Fewer people running nodes means more power concentrated in large mining operations, the opposite of what Bitcoin was built for.
Adam Back, co-founder of Blockstream, has sided with Saylor against the proposal. Casa’s Jameson Lopp and Bitcoin advocate Samson Mow have also weighed in publicly.
Mow published his own essay, “The Bitcoin Alliance,” arguing that Bitcoin’s various players, developers, miners, node runners, companies, and users, should see themselves as partners with different jobs, not factions forcing each other into line.
Related: Adam Back Calls BIP-110 ‘Technically Defective’ as Bitcoin Governance Debate Heats Up
Why It’s Stalling
As of mid-July 2026, the numbers tell their own story. BIP 110 needs 55% of miners signaling support to lock in, already a lower bar than Bitcoin’s usual 95% threshold. Support has stayed under 2%, with almost all of it coming from Ocean, the mining pool linked to Dashjr.
Major pools like Foundry USA and AntPool haven’t committed, and F2Pool has openly opposed it. The mandatory signaling window is set to open in early August 2026, but as things stand, the proposal looks unlikely to activate.
The Bigger Question
Whether or not BIP 110 passes, it has already exposed something more important than the byte limits themselves. Bitcoin has no CEO and no formal government.
In theory, it’s shaped by rough agreement between developers who write the code, node operators who enforce the rules, miners who build blocks, and the market, meaning holders, businesses, and everyday users, who decide what they’ll accept as valid.
BIP 110 tests what happens when those groups disagree. A small number of miners can’t force a rule change alone. Developers can propose code, but they can’t make anyone run it. And large holders like Saylor can shout loudly on social media, but they don’t control consensus either.
That’s really the story here. Not whether inscriptions belong on Bitcoin, but whether any single group, developers, miners, or big holders, gets to unilaterally decide the answer. So far, Bitcoin’s structure seems to be working as designed: without broad agreement across all these groups, nothing moves. Whether that counts as healthy gridlock or a warning sign depends on who you ask.
Related: BIP-110 Support Grows, but Adam Back Sees No Consensus
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