Key Takeaways:
- BIP-110 soft fork targets Ordinals inscriptions with activation window on Aug. 7
- Only 0.31% of mining hashrate backs the proposal, far below the 55% threshold
- Critics warn of chain split risk as mandatory enforcement window approaches
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BIP-110 pushes Bitcoin toward August fork deadline with 0.3% miner support
BIP-110, a proposal to restrict Ordinals-style data on Bitcoin, faces an Aug. 7 activation deadline with less than 1% of mining hashrate behind it.
"BIP-110's activation relies on a low 55% miner support threshold for a User-Activated Soft Fork. This greatly increases the chances of a chain split," Jameson Lopp, a Bitcoin developer and engineer, said in a detailed analysis published in June.
The proposal, authored by Dathon Ohm, targets the most common methods used for Ordinals inscriptions, large OP_RETURN payloads, BRC-20 tokens, and certain Taproot constructions repurposed for data storage. It requires 55% miner backing — 1,109 of 2,016 blocks per retarget period — using a modified BIP9 deployment rather than the traditional 95% threshold. As of late June, only 0.31% of total hashrate, roughly 5 EH/s out of 940 EH/s, had expressed support, with Ocean pool producing the majority of those blocks. More recently, that figure dropped to 0.00%, according to bip110.org/monitor.
If the threshold is not met naturally, a mandatory enforcement window beginning around block 961632 (projected Aug. 7) will reject any block that fails to signal bit 4. Node adoption for BIP-110-capable software, primarily Bitcoin Knots variants, ranges from an estimated 2% to 8% of listening nodes.
A chain split would force exchanges to halt deposits, create replay risk, and divide the network between enforcing and legacy nodes. Under a minority-enforcement scenario, the BIP-110 chain would likely produce blocks more slowly as difficulty adjusts downward, potentially surviving or withering depending on whether exchanges, wallets, and users assign it economic value. The proposal expires automatically after 52,416 blocks (roughly one year) if activated, but the disruption from a split would occur regardless of which chain ultimately prevails.
Adam Back, Blockstream co-founder, said the proposal "doesn't work, breaks multiple things, doesn't have tech nor ecosystem consensus." He added: "We all hate spam. But this is not the way."
Supporters argue that miners will not sacrifice block rewards over inscription fees once the choice becomes real, limiting sustained split risk. They point to BIP-148, the 2017 UASF that helped force SegWit activation, as precedent for user-activated pressure working despite miner resistance. One proponent, writing under the name Softfork Mechanic, said BIP-110 is "an extremely minor guardrail" compared to the scale of SegWit and Taproot changes.
Matteo Pellegrini, a BIP-110 supporter, reached out to roughly 17,000 users on Club Orange, a bitcoin-only social network, and received more than 100 positive responses from roughly 500 daily active users. He said the level of engagement suggests 20% to 25% of nodes could support the proposal.
The mandatory block window arrives in approximately six weeks. Whether BIP-110 passes or fails, the proposal has forced Bitcoin's governance tension into the open: node runners versus miners, spam protection versus data freedom, and UASF urgency versus broad consensus requirements.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
