Saylor calls time on Bitcoin's most divisive proposal

Michael @saylor has called on supporters of BIP-110 to abandon the effort, arguing the numbers have made the case for them. With just 38 signaling blocks, or 2.70% of the total, as of block 961,022, the proposal needs a 55% miner threshold to lock in voluntarily, which Saylor called impossible. His message was blunt: "Unless major miners reverse, Bitcoin continues normally while BIP-110 stalls or forks into irrelevance. Its backers should stand down."

What BIP-110 Would Do

BIP-110, formally titled the Reduced Data Temporary Soft Fork and authored under the pseudonym Dathon Ohm, proposes a one-year consensus-level restriction on arbitrary data embedding in Bitcoin transactions. The rules would target the most common methods used for Ordinals inscriptions, large OP_RETURN payloads, BRC-20 tokens, and certain Taproot constructions repurposed for data storage. It also lowers the miner signaling threshold required for activation to 55%, down from the traditional 95% supermajority that Bitcoin soft forks have historically required.

Supporters argue that inscription-style activity bloats the blockchain and creates "significant unnecessary burdens" on node operators. They frame the proposal as a defense of Bitcoin's role as sound money. Critics, including Saylor, counter that changing consensus rules to address what some consider spam sets a more dangerous precedent than the problem itself. Saylor argues that fee markets and relay policies, not consensus changes, should address so-called spam, warning that BIP-110 could restrict innovation, weaken miner incentives, and undermine Bitcoin's role as an open, permissionless financial system.

The Numbers Are the Story

Miner signaling sits near 2.6% of blocks after OCEAN began signaling by default, too low for voluntary lock-in this period, so the mandatory signaling window at block 961,632, around August 9, is the only remaining path. No major pool has committed: F2Pool has refused outright, AntPool has stayed silent, Foundry USA opened a hashrate-weighted miner vote, and Ocean produces effectively all signaling blocks. On those numbers, the likelier outcome is a small breakaway chain rather than a network-wide change.

Adam Back and Jameson Lopp have also warned that the proposal risks a Bitcoin chain split, calling activation parameters reckless and technically flawed. Saylor is not alone in his assessment, but his intervention carries particular weight given that his company holds 843,775 $BTC. The proposal has triggered one of the most significant Bitcoin governance disputes in recent years. As of July 2026, miner support stands below 1% and a mandatory signaling window approaches in August, making activation near-impossible, but the debate BIP-110 sparked over Bitcoin's protocol governance is ongoing regardless of the proposal's outcome.

Sources
Bitcoin.com: Strategy's Saylor Tells BIP-110 Backers to 'Stand Down' Before Fork
Crypto Times: Michael Saylor Says BIP-110 Lacks Bitcoin Economic Consensus
AMINA Bank: Bitcoin Fork August 2026 – BIP-110, eCash, Covenants and the Quantum Clock