Bitcoin's BIP-110 Presses Toward Activation Despite Negligible Miner Support

Bitcoin faces an unusual test this weekend as a small coalition of node operators prepares to reject blocks produced by nearly all of the network's miners.

BIP-110, a contentious Bitcoin Improvement Proposal that would temporarily restrict the amount of non-payment data stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, is nearing its long-scheduled mandatory signalling period, anticipated around Aug. 9. Should activation occur, it would take effect at block 965,664, roughly four weeks after the signalling window closes.

The proposal's standard 55% approval threshold is already mathematically out of reach.

Miner Support Remains Marginal

Public signalling from mining pools has remained negligible at under 3%, with only two days remaining before the network reaches the relevant block height. Critics have pointed to this overwhelming lack of miner backing as evidence that BIP-110 is effectively dead. Its supporters firmly reject that assessment.

On paper, the proposal appears defeated. If BIP-110 were a referendum, "landslide" would not begin to capture the scale of the loss. Yet the movement persists, driven by a fundamental disagreement over who governs the Bitcoin network.

The Node-versus-Miner Debate

Nodes are computers running Bitcoin software that independently verify transactions and blocks against the network's rules, rejecting anything deemed invalid. While miners create new blocks, it is the nodes that ultimately decide whether to accept them.

BIP-110's proponents argue that miners do not govern Bitcoin—they merely produce blocks. Nodes determine whether those blocks comply with the rules. User-activated soft forks (UASFs) are built around exactly this principle, enabling node operators to begin enforcing new rules from a predetermined block height irrespective of miner participation. The approach echoes the 2017 UASF movement around BIP-148, which threatened to reject non-signalling blocks to pressure miners into activating SegWit—a campaign widely credited with accelerating SegWit's eventual lock-in.

Pseudonymous Author Rallys Supporters

Dathon Ohm, the proposal's pseudonymous author, struck a defiant tone in a thread on X on Thursday. "Bitcoiners are about to show the world, once again, what happens when the plebs stand up against large, corrupt institutions who are telling us Bitcoin isn't money and our nodes belong to them," Ohm wrote.

Beyond the rhetoric, the thread offered practical guidance for miners intending to enforce BIP-110's rules. Supporters were advised to upgrade to Bitcoin Knots, the primary software implementation carrying and enforcing the proposal. Bitcoin Knots is maintained by Luke Dashjr, a longtime Bitcoin Core contributor, and has historically served as a platform for more restrictive interpretations of Bitcoin's consensus rules. The thread warned that Bitcoin Core—the network's principal software representing the current implementation of Bitcoin's rules—should not be run, as it would become "insecure."

"BIP-110 is a movement by the plebs, for the plebs, standing up and arming themselves with software to tell these institutions in one resounding, unified voice: BITCOIN IS MONEY, OUR NODES BELONG TO US, AND WE WILL NEVER GIVE UP," the thread stated.

Targeting Ordinals and Runes

BIP-110 is designed to temporarily tighten Bitcoin's consensus rules to render inscription techniques used by Ordinals and Runes impractical. Ordinals, introduced in January 2023, allow users to inscribe data such as images and text directly onto individual satoshis, while Runes, launched in April 2024, enable fungible token issuance on Bitcoin. Together, the protocols have driven a surge in non-payment transaction activity, at times pushing network fees to multi-year highs. Supporters contend that using the network for non-financial data consumes block space, makes nodes more expensive to operate, and undermines Bitcoin's core purpose as digital money.

If nodes running BIP-110-enforcing software begin rejecting blocks that contain inscriptions while the majority of miners continue producing them, the network could face a chain split—two competing versions of the blockchain. Whether that scenario materializes depends on how many node operators and economic actors actually adopt the enforcement.

The proposal's proponents maintain that Bitcoin's open-source architecture means anyone is free to adopt an alternative version of the code and enforce whatever rules they believe define the network.