Saylor turns up heat with ‘110 reasons’ why BIP-110 is a bad idea

The man in control of the biggest Bitcoin corporate treasury said he shares the objectives but disagrees about the remedy detailed in the proposed temporary fork.

Many Bitcoiners I respect support BIP 110. They want to keep validation accessible, protect node operators from unwanted costs and content, preserve affordable payments, and keep Bitcoin focused on sound money rather than general-purpose data storage. Those are serious concerns. I share the objectives. I disagree about the remedy.

• Michael Saylor on X.com

He added: “This article critiques the proposal, not the people behind it. I assume good faith. Bitcoin is strongest when we can disagree vigorously without mistaking allies for enemies.”

As of 12 p.m. ET, on Sunday, the post had been viewed 879,000 times, with 692 replies and 852 retweets.

Background on BIP-110

BIP-110 is one of the more notable protocol-level disputes in the Bitcoin development community since the Blocksize Wars between 2015 and 2017, when ecosystem participants debated whether it was worth risking a chain split to raise the block size limit for scalability.

The proposal was introduced by pseudonymous Bitcoin developer “Dathon Ohm” with the support of Ocean protocol founder Luke Dashjr. Opponents include Blockstream CEO Adam Back. Related: Bitcoin nodes running BIP-110 crosses 2% as spam wars heat up

To be sure, BIP-110 won’t be activated unless 55% of Bitcoin nodes validating blocks are in support of the proposal across a Bitcoin block “period.” In the last period, period number 475 between block 955,584 and 957,599, only 1% of blocks were in support.

Ordinals activity and criticism

The dispute comes at a time when Ordinals activity is at near all-time lows, with fewer than 10,000 Ordinals inscribed into the Bitcoin blockchain on a daily basis over the last month, down from the more than 400,000 seen during its peak in August 2023.

Change in daily Ordinals inscriptions since December 2022. Source: Dune Analytics

Bock has previously criticized BIP-110, describing it as a “quest to police other people.” He said Bitcoin’s decentralization should mean “you can’t impose your views on others,” calling it incompatible with BTC’s cypherpunk ethos of permissionless, censorship-resistant money.

Dashjr and other BIP-110 supporters have called Ordinals-driven bloat a “serious threat” to the network, prompting the need for an imminent fix. They have also argued BIP-110 wouldn’t cause a chain split, as many fear, while adding that the BIP-110 fork imposes a temporary one-year limit and thus wouldn’t invalidate fee-paying transactions over the long term.

Features: From Bitcoin critics to blockchain believers: The 5 biggest crypto backflips