Michael Saylor, Strategy’s executive chairman, and Blockstream CEO Adam Back have publicly opposed BIP-110, a proposed temporary fork aimed at limiting non-monetary data like Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin network. Both figures criticized the proposal’s potential effects on the protocol and on Bitcoin’s decentralization.
BIP-110 was introduced in December 2025 by a pseudonymous developer known as “Dathon Ohm,” with support from Ocean Protocol founder Luke Dashjr. The proposal would temporarily restrict arbitrary data embedded in transactions to address what its backers call “spam” and protect Bitcoin’s role as a peer-to-peer cash system.
Saylor and Back, while critical of excessive Ordinals activity, argue that BIP-110 could do more harm than good. Saylor warned that the proposal risks invalidating legitimate, fee-paying transactions and wrote that “there are 110 things more dangerous to Bitcoin than spam,” expressing concern about turning a spam dispute into a consensus change. Back framed the measure as an attempt to police other users, saying it conflicts with Bitcoin’s permissionless, censorship-resistant, cypherpunk ethos.
The disagreement is one of the most significant protocol-level disputes since the Blocksize Wars of 2015–2017, when the community fiercely debated changes to block size limits. Proponents of BIP-110 say Ordinals-driven bloat poses a serious threat and that a short, one-year temporary fork would be an appropriate remedy. They also argue the change would not necessarily cause a chain split.
Activation of BIP-110 would require 55% support from Bitcoin nodes validating blocks across a defined block period. In the most recent period — period 475, covering blocks 955,584 through 957,599 — only about 1% of blocks signaled support for the proposal, making activation far from guaranteed.
The timing of the dispute coincides with a sharp decline in Ordinals activity. Daily Ordinals inscriptions have fallen to under 10,000 on average over the past month, down dramatically from a peak of more than 400,000 in August 2023. That reduction has been cited by critics of the rush to impose protocol-level limits.
Supporters of BIP-110 maintain the change is a targeted, temporary defense against network bloat. Opponents counter that imposing such a rule would set a precedent for imposing subjective policy on users and risks damaging Bitcoin’s credibility and stability. The debate highlights a continuing tension within the Bitcoin community over how to balance technical purity, user freedom, and network resource management.
