Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110) reinvigorated a debate that grew among the Bitcoin developer and user community throughout 2025: whether the network should allow non-financial uses or be limited to financial systems only.
This article therefore examines five keys to understanding the conflict surrounding BIP-110.
1) What is BIP-110, what is it for, and how was it born?
A BIP is a standard document for proposing changes and new features for Bitcoin. In this framework, BIP-110 appears as the next proposal. soft fork (soft fork) to limit non-monetary use of the network, as reported by CriptoNoticias.
Its purpose is to use Bitcoin as a digital money system. Prioritize payments and payments Eliminates non-monetary uses (transactions intended to store arbitrary data such as images, text, etc.) competing for space within the block.
BIP-110 is called a “temporary soft fork to reduce data.” Created by anonymous developer He works under the pseudonym Dason Ohm.
The proposal was initially known as BIP-444, but once its code was integrated into the official Bitcoin repository, it was officially identified as BIP-110.
At the time of this writing, this document is in draft status and indicates the following: is in early stages of development and will be the subject of lively discussion within the community.
2) How does BIP-110 work?
This proposal tightens node acceptance criteria Through strict validation rulesis specifically designed to reduce the propagation of arbitrary data on the chain.
This mechanism operates at the network policy level (node policy) instead of completely rewriting the protocol. Information traffic control.
From a practical perspective, the proposal aims to prevent the network from being used to insert data for non-monetary purposes without affecting normal Bitcoin transactions between users. The idea is to reserve space within the block for payments and settlements.
3) What problem is BIP-110 supposed to solve?
BIP-110 was born as a response to: Some Bitcoiners think that spam Transactions on networks, that is, transactions that do not pursue financial objectives. Much of this traffic is opcode Protocols such as OP_RETURN and Ordinals.
To critics of these uses, including such arbitrary descriptions in Bitcoin increases the size of the chain and increases the cost of operating nodes.
Instead, the developers of the reference client Bitcoin Core and their followers Defending and promoting the freedom of use of Bitcoin. By May 2025, almost half of the trade they were not economicalthis trend continued until the end of that year, as reported by CriptoNoticias.
BIP-110 warns that increasing the OP_RETURN field to 100,000 kilobytes (kB) in Bitcoin Core version 30 (v.30) makes it possible to embed large amounts of non-financial data such as images and files. This capacity raises the following concerns: May contain illegal contentbeing forced to store such content would expose node operators to legal and ethical risks.
4) Discussion on BIP-110: Principles, Governance, Costs
The BIP-110 proposal has divided the community between those calling for technical cleanup and those concerned about consensus vulnerabilities.
Journalist Hodronaut and Bitcoin community founder Maya Parboe encourage a call to action. Both take Bitcoin Core policies into account Allowed systematic abuse of block space by inscriptions.
Parbhoe argues that “ordinal numbers do not belong in Bitcoin” and that ordinal numbers represent a vector of exploitation.
Analyst George Bodin also joined this position and introduced a normative argument. He argues that illegal and obscene content harms node operators and node operators. need to be artificially expensive.
A different interpretation is provided by the BitMEX team. The analysis firm said Bitcoin Core did not promote controversial policies; reaction was slow. They believe that the current scenario is due to miners and intermediary services like MARA Company (MARA) facilitating the spread of these transactions.
Adam Back, co-founder of Blockstream, I reject the idea of banning.spam«. According to Back, stricter rules have the opposite effect, forcing attackers to hide data in more complex and expensive structures.
Political risks also generate important warnings. Developer Wicked warns: Failed activation attempt (according to BIP-110) “Adjustment Capital Burn”. This reduces the community’s ability to organize necessary changes in the future without fragmenting the network.
Meanwhile, Bull Bitcoin wallet founder Francis Pollio used historical lessons to strengthen his vision for Wicked. For him, Bitcoin’s biggest strength is No one can arbitrarily change the rules To resolve temporary usage issues.
Bitcoin analyst Justin Bechler thinks so: million dollar bitcoin it depends Of the three elements:
- Regarding the reliability of its monetary policy.
- About his resistance to censorship.
- A network of nodes that enforces both.
If either party is weakened, the entire argument loses its power. Bechler offers: BIP-110 acts as a temporary brake to recover 36% of block spacewithout affecting financial transactions.
discussion collection
- Mumbo’s hodronote: They push for BIP-110 to stop the use of inscriptions and ordinals in the main chain.
- Adam Back: He claims that technical limitations shift unwanted content to more costly node cloaking methods.
- evil: He warned that failure to activate would fragment the consensus and deplete the community’s capacity for political coordination.
- Francis Pollio: He argues that the immutability of rules protects Bitcoin from governance capture and arbitrary changes.
- Justin Bechler: He estimates that this measure will recover 36% of block space by filtering non-financial transactions for one year.
5) How does BIP-110 start (or fail)?
BIP-110 We consider two possible activation pathwaysboth through smooth forks (soft fork)That is, rule changes that are compatible with nodes that have not been updated, at least in a theoretical design.
- scheduled activation (Flag Day): For the main track, the deadline is set for 2026 (specifically when the block height of 893,100 is reached). From then on, data restriction rules are automatically activated for upgraded nodes, and blocks containing prohibited data are ignored.
- Reactive activation and reorganization: If illegal material is detected, rules can be activated immediately. This could force a retrospective reorganization of the chain, invalidating already mined blocks containing such content and making them permanently unrecorded in Bitcoin history.
The authors acknowledge that, unlike other soft forks, this mechanism may cause temporary chain splits, as nodes that have not been updated will continue to accept blocks that BIP-110 deems invalid.
However, he argues that this risk is Is an acceptable cost to prevent the continued existence of illegal contentmoves the discussion from the technical to the normative and philosophical.
Additionally, the proposal includes a one-year sunset clause, after which the rule will no longer be valid unless the community decides to renew it.
Finally, the rejection or non-adoption of BIP-110 is not dependent on updates to Bitcoin Core, the most widely used network client. Since the proposal not part of that client.
Its implementation requires a node operator Voluntarily installing the Bitcoin Knots softwarethe client where the proposer initiates the activation.
In that framework, BIP-110 will simply not be activated if a significant number of nodes decide not to install Knots or apply a soft fork, emphasizing that the fate of BIP-110 is tied to the network’s social and operational consensus, not to intensive development decisions.