While debates around the use of the Bitcoin blockchain are increasing, a new technical proposal is reigniting tensions within the community. Called BIP-110, this project intends to temporarily limit the registration of non-financial data on the network in order to reduce what its promoters consider to be spam, in particular the Ordinals, BRC-20 and Runes protocols. While some see this as a necessary development to preserve the effectiveness of Bitcoin, others believe that it is a questioning of the neutrality of the protocol and its founding principles. Does BIP-110 represent progress for Bitcoin or a risk for the future of the network?
In brief
- BIP-110 wants to limit non-financial data on Bitcoin, including Ordinals, BRC-20 and Runes.
- Its activation relies on a UASF, but miner support remains less than 1%.
- Bitcoin Core and major network players refuse to adopt this proposal.
- The project raises a major debate over the neutrality, decentralization and censorship resistance of Bitcoin.
- Without consensus, BIP-110 risks remaining a minority initiative with no impact on the main chain.
BIP-110: a controversial proposal to limit non-financial data on Bitcoin
BIP-110 (Reduced Data Temporary Softfork or RDTS) is a proposed fork presented as an improvement to Bitcoin aimed at restricting, for approximately one year, the recording of non-financial data on the blockchain. Carried by the pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm and supported by Luke Dashjrco-founder and technical director of the Ocean mining pool. The project, they say, primarily targets Ordinals inscriptions, BRC-20 tokens, the Runes protocol and, more broadly, arbitrary data that its defenders consider spam.
According to his presentationBIP-110 will introduce seven new consensus rules intended to limit the space used by these registrations. In particular, it would reduce the size of new outputs to 34 bytes, with the exception of OP_RETURN outputs, capped at 83 bytes, while limiting data insertions to 256 bytes. The proposal also imposes several restrictions on certain Taproot features, including appendices, control blocks and certain opcodes.
To ensure compatibility with funds already present on the network, UTXOs created before the activation of BIP-110 would remain permanently exempt from these new rules. The restrictions would therefore only concern new transactions created after the entry into force of the soft fork.
A soft fork that breaks with traditional Bitcoin activation methods
Unlike previous major developments in Bitcoin, BIP-110 is based on a User-Activated Soft Fork (UASF), a mechanism that transfers activation power from miners to node operators. As a reminder, a soft fork is a backwards compatible update that makes the protocol rules more restrictive without preventing older versions of the software from continuing to work.
In a typical deployment, miners signal their support by modifying a bit of information in the blocks they produce, until reaching the threshold required to activate the update. But for BIP 110’s approach, nodes will be able to enforce its rules whether miners agree or not, with a miner reporting threshold set at 55% over a period of 2,016 blocks instead of the traditional 95%.
A verdict from the miners which leaves no doubt
Even at this significantly lower level, no support is provided. Since reporting launched in spring 2026, support from minors has never exceeded approximately 1% in any period according to BIP-10 monitor data and is around 0.91% at the time of writing this article. No major mining pools, such as Foundry USA or AntPool, have joined the initiative, while F2Pool has openly opposed it. Almost all of the blocks reporting BIP-110 come from Ocean, the pool co-founded by Luke Dashjr, as well as a few small independent operators.
The observation is similar on the user side. Bitcoin Core, the implementation used by the vast majority of network nodes, will not integrate BIP-110. Only operators using Bitcoin Knots and having voluntarily configured their software to apply these new rules would be likely to participate in its activation.
The deadline is coming to an end. The current signaling period extends from block 957,600 to block 959,615, and a voluntary lockout deadline is set at block 961,542 during the next period, scheduled for early August. Nodes running the BIP 110 software will therefore be able to start rejecting any block that does not signal support, with activation expected around September. In practice, a rule enforced by a few nodes and almost no miners would make no difference to Bitcoin for all, but would result in the splitting of a minority chain.
For ordinary users, the consequences should remain limited until BIP-110 gains significant adoption. On the other hand, if this proposal were to attract a significant part of the network’s computing power – for example 20% or more of the hashrate – it could cause a temporary drop in the hashrate on the main chain, an increase in the number of orphaned blocks, disruptions for wallets and exchange platforms, before opening a debate on the chain which could legitimately claim the name of Bitcoin.
Beyond registrations, it is the very philosophy of Bitcoin that is at stake
Beyond its weak technical support, the main obstacle of BIP-110 lies in what it calls into question: the founding principles of Bitcoin. Since its creation in 2009, the protocol has been based on a simple idea: to be a decentralized, neutral and censorship-resistant network, where no one can decide which transactions are legitimate or not. As long as a transaction follows consensus rules and fees are paid, Bitcoin makes no distinction about the nature of the data it carries.
It is precisely on this point that BIP-110 arouses strong opposition. By seeking to limit certain registrations, such as Ordinals, BRC-20 or Runes, the proposal introduces a form of filtering of blockchain uses. Such a development would be a betrayal of the original spirit of Bitcoin which, for more than fifteen years, has operated without a central authority capable of selecting which transactions are acceptable or not. Modifying the rules of consensus to exclude certain uses would create a precedent likely to open the way to other forms of censorship, the opposite of the philosophy that allowed Bitcoin to establish itself as an open and permissionless protocol.
This opposition is notably supported by two of the most influential figures in the industry. Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, dismissed BIP-110, saying that “ there are 110 things more dangerous for Bitcoin than spam “. According to him, the proposal is not limited to fighting against registrations deemed abusive: it “ turns a spam dispute into a consensus change that would invalidate certain valid, paid transactions “. For Saylor, the real danger lies in the precedent such a change would set.
The same observation is shared by Adam Back, co-founder of Blockstream and inventor of the Hashcash system, cited in the Bitcoin white paper. Addressing supporters of BIP-110, he recalled that “ Bitcoin politely says no to what you want », believing that the protocol is not intended to be modified to meet the expectations of a group of users. According to him, those who wish to apply new rules are free to create their own bifurcation, but “ Bitcoin will not join this », reaffirming that the fundamental rules of the network cannot be imposed by a minority.
Thus, BIP-110 illustrates a new battle around the future of Bitcoin, between those who wish to limit certain uses of the blockchain and those who defend the neutrality of the protocol. Despite its technical objectives, the proposal struggles to obtain the necessary consensus among miners and users. Its activation could more lead to a separation of the Bitcoin chain than bring a real improvement.
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