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Michael Saylor has come out firmly against Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, better known as BIP 110. His argument is straightforward: Bitcoin needs guardians of neutrality, not gatekeepers deciding which transactions are worthy of the chain.
What BIP 110 actually proposes
BIP 110 is designed to temporarily add seven extra consensus rules to the Bitcoin network for a period of one year. The goal is to filter out what proponents call network spam, specifically non-monetary data inscriptions modeled after Ordinals.
In practical terms, the proposal would cap new output scripts at 34 bytes and limit OP_RETURN outputs to 83 bytes.
For BIP 110 to activate, at least 55% of nodes would need to validate blocks signaling support, with the target activation set at block 965,664. Here is where the proposal immediately runs into a wall: miner signaling is currently sitting at 0%.
Saylor’s case for neutrality
Saylor’s objection cuts deeper than a preference for Ordinals or a distaste for spam filters. His concern is structural. He argues that the moment Bitcoin’s consensus rules start distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable transaction types, the network crosses a line it cannot uncross. Bitcoin’s rules should define what is technically valid, not what is economically or culturally desirable.
Adam Back adds weight to the opposition
Saylor is not alone in this corner. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, has also criticized BIP 110 on similar grounds. Back’s concern centers on decentralization and censorship resistance. His position echoes a long-standing principle in Bitcoin development: the network’s strength comes from its predictability and its indifference to the identity or purpose of a transaction sender.
What this means for Bitcoin governance and investors
The zero miner signaling figure effectively puts BIP 110 on life support before it ever reached a real vote. Without miner participation, the proposal cannot reach its activation threshold.
This debate is a proxy war for a much larger question: is Bitcoin a narrow monetary network optimized for value transfer, or is it a general-purpose settlement layer indifferent to the nature of what it settles? Ordinals forced that question into the open, and BIP 110 represents one camp’s attempt to answer it through protocol rules rather than social consensus.
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