BIP-110 Pushes Bitcoin Toward August Fork Deadline With Only 5 EH/s Signaling

What BIP-110 Actually Does

BIP-110, authored by Dathon Ohm and formally titled the Reduced Data Temporary Soft fork, proposes a one-year consensus-level regularisation connected arbitrary information embedding successful bitcoin transactions. The rules would people the astir communal methods utilized for Ordinals inscriptions, ample OP_RETURN payloads, BRC-20 tokens, and definite Taproot constructions repurposed for information storage.

The connection is written arsenic a fork, albeit a brushed fork, meaning its caller rules are stricter than existing ones, but backward compatible. Standard monetary transactions utilizing P2PKH, P2WPKH, oregon Taproot key-path spends would stay afloat valid. After 52,416 blocks (roughly 1 year), the rules expire automatically with nary lingering enforcement.

Supporters accidental it addresses a existent problem: information retention competing with payments raises fees, increases node operating costs, and bends Bitcoin’s inducement operation distant from its monetary purpose.

The Numbers That Define the Risk

The activation parameters are aggressive. BIP-110 uses a modified BIP9 deployment requiring lone 55% miner signaling (1,109 of 2,016 blocks per retarget period) alternatively than the accepted 95% threshold. If that threshold is not met naturally, a mandatory signaling model opening astir artifact 961632 (projected Aug. 7, 2026) volition cull immoderate artifact that fails to awesome spot 4.

Coin Dance Bitcoin Nodes Summary shows Bitcoin Knots nodes basal contiguous astatine astir 22.65% of the aggregate 23,795 nodes moving Bitcoin.

As of precocious June 2026, miner signaling sits astatine 0.31% of full hashrate, astir 5 EH/s retired of a web full adjacent 940 EH/s. More recently, implicit the past day, the website bip110.org/monitor shows signaling astatine 0.00%. Ocean excavation has produced the bulk of signaling blocks since the archetypal appeared successful March 2026. Node adoption for BIP-110-capable bundle (primarily Bitcoin Knots variants) ranges from an estimated 2% to 8% of listening nodes, though immoderate figures are disputed.

How a Split Happens

Bitcoin’s heaviest-chain regularisation is what makes this dangerous. If enforcing nodes and sympathetic miners statesman rejecting blocks that incorporate non-compliant transactions, and those blocks transportation valid proof-of-work nether bequest rules, 2 competing chains emerge. Enforcing nodes physique 1 chain. Legacy nodes travel another.

A minority-enforcement script would apt nutrient a slower, lower- hashrate BIP-110 concatenation arsenic trouble adjusts downward. That concatenation could past oregon wither depending connected whether exchanges, wallets, and users delegate it economical value. The disruption itself, including halted speech deposits, replay risk, and infrastructure confusion, would hap careless of which concatenation yet prevails.

Critics: ‘This Is Not the Way’

Adam Back, the cypherpunk and Blockstream co-founder, has been nonstop connected X, stating: “It truly doesn’t work, breaks aggregate things, doesn’t person tech nor ecosystem consensus. Each is fatal. It has each four. We each hatred spam. But this is not the way. You’re gonna wounded yourselves.”

Jameson Lopp published a detailed analysis calling BIP-110 “reckless” and “doomed to fail.” His critique covers divided risk, imaginable unspendable UTXOs successful uncommon Taproot borderline cases, the proposal’s ineffectiveness astatine really stopping information retention semipermanent (embedding tin beryllium done successful different ways), and the compatibility load it places connected wallets, Miniscript tooling, and pre-signed transactions.

“BIP-110’s activation relies connected a debased 55% miner signaling threshold for a User-Activated Soft Fork (UASF),” Lopp’s blog station explains. “This greatly increases the chances of a ‘chain split, ‘ successful which determination are 2 competing chains vying to beryllium ‘the existent Bitcoin.’ During a concatenation divided script you should expect the full ecosystem to grind to a halt arsenic a effect of uncertainty astir which fork volition triumph and resulting double-spend risks.”

Jimmy Song drew dense disapproval connected X aft declining to instrumentality a position, penning that helium lacked capable cognition of the consequences. “I americium not ‘for’ oregon ‘against’ BIP110. The crushed being that I don’t cognize capable astir the strategy to cognize the consequences of either path. We’ll cognize a small much erstwhile the brushed fork resolves 1 mode oregon the other, but currently, I person small thought of however thing plays out,” Song explained.

Pro-BIP-110 accounts interpreted his neutrality arsenic audience capture and doing nothing. While caution is commendable, taking it to this utmost leads to full inaction, BIP-110 proponent dubbed the Softfork Mechanic explained. “I respect the humility of course, but this exceeds that and becomes paralysis. Bitcoin is not wholly static,” the Softfork Mechanic wrote to Song.

The X relationship added:

“Segwit and Taproot were tremendous changes with immoderate horrible consequences. BIP110 is an highly insignificant guardrail placed connected the second and it is casual to reason some that it is indispensable fixed the harm taproot did successful signifier whilst vanishingly improbable to person further unforseen consequences itself.”

Blockstream’s Back besides responded to Song’s station arsenic well. “There’s nary method consensus,” Back insisted.

Supporters Push Back

Supporters besides reason miners volition not sacrifice artifact rewards implicit spam fees erstwhile the prime becomes real, limiting sustained divided risk. Others invoke BIP148, the 2017 UASF that helped unit Segwit activation, arsenic precedent for user-activated unit moving contempt miner resistance.

Matteo Pellegrini precocious reached retired to a ample assemblage connected Club Orange, a bitcoin-only societal network, sending messages to astir 17,000 radical and asking them to “zap maine backmost if they enactment BIP110.” With a regular progressive idiosyncratic basal of astir 500, Pellegrini said helium had already received implicit 100 affirmative responses. Pellegrini concludes that if this level of engagement mirrors the broader web of “ node runners,” we should “expect 20-25% of nodes supporting BIP110.”

What Comes Next

BIP-110 expires automatically if it activates and nary follow-on connection extends it. Whether it passes oregon fails, the connection has already forced Bitcoin’s governance hostility into the open: node runners versus miners, spam extortion versus information freedom, UASF urgency versus wide statement requirements.

The mandatory artifact model arrives successful astir six weeks. That is capable clip for signaling to displacement dramatically oregon for the ecosystem to determination firmly successful the different direction.