Michael Saylor just told the backers of a contentious Bitcoin proposal to pack it in. The Strategy chief didn't mince words this week, posting a blunt calculation on X that essentially declared the effort dead on arrival. Yet the real tension arrives in days, when the network's rules could force a split.
The proposal in question, BIP-110, had managed to capture just 38 signaling blocks out of roughly 1,400 in its current window. That's 2.7%. To lock in through the standard path, it needs 55% of miners backing it. The math, as Saylor laid it out, doesn't work. Major pools including Foundry, AntPool, F2Pool and ViaBTC haven't signaled support at all. The voluntary threshold is gone. "Unless major miners reverse, Bitcoin continues normally while BIP-110 stalls or forks into irrelevance," Saylor wrote. "Its backers should stand down."
What BIP-110 Actually Changes
The proposal targets data bloat. Bitcoin lets users attach images, tokens and other non-financial information to transactions through tools like Ordinals inscriptions and large OP_RETURN messages. BIP-110 would cap most of that data for roughly a year while leaving regular payments and Lightning network transactions untouched. Supporters, centered around Bitcoin Knots software and the Ocean mining pool, argue the limits would reduce the strain on node operators and lower fees driven up by data-heavy transactions.
Saylor and other critics see it differently. They say the rules would let the network start judging transaction purpose instead of just processing all transactions equally. That crosses a line for them.
The Fork Risk Nobody Wants
The real problem arrives soon. A mandatory signaling window opens near block 961,632. At that point, BIP-110 nodes would reject blocks from miners that don't signal support for the change. That's when the network could actually split. Saylor's message amounts to a warning: if major miners don't reverse course before then, BIP-110 either stalls into obscurity or forces a chain fork that benefits nobody.
The backers aren't listening. They're pushing ahead anyway, despite the overwhelming numbers against them. Whether the network survives this without fracturing depends entirely on what happens in the next few blocks.
This article covers technical developments in Bitcoin governance and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to trade or invest in any cryptocurrency.
