According to the media, Executive Chairman of Strategy Michael Saylor, on weekends, published a long article listing 110 points against the Bitcoin soft fork proposal BIP-110. The proposal proposes to tighten the consensus rule within a period of about one year and limit the inclusion of non-financial data such as Ordinals and inscriptions. Saylor argued that the question was not whether or not to object to “spam data”, but whether to reject by consensus transactions that were still valid and willing to pay fees.
The proposal aims at inscriptions and Ordinals
Proponents of BIP-110 wish to use this to compress non-financial data into block space. Since 2023, the inscriptions and Ordinals have continued to push up a part of the time chain congestion and handling fees. Supporters included developers Luke Dashjr and Bitcoin Knots, who considered such data as “waste information” and believed that it should be restricted through rule-based adjustments.
Opponents argued that such practices would directly exclude transactions that were otherwise valid and could trigger network fragmentation. The report mentions that the BIP-110 mandatory signal window will be open in August and the target active is around 1 September.
Salle says "spam message" cannot be a consensus standard.
In the article, Saylor stated that the Bitcoin network could not identify the “intent” behind a byte. The same data format, which may be a picture or a reference to a certificate, a contract or a new application in the future. Therefore, when data are restricted for certain types of use, it may also block other legitimate uses.
In his view, “waste information” was not an objective criterion that could be included in the consensus rule. The lack of recognition of a particular purpose does not invalidate the transaction. If this time the disputed uses can be dealt with on a consensus level, future privacy tools, new forms of hosting, stable currency settlement or token systems may face similar treatment.
In his view, BIP-110, even if implemented for about a year, did not automatically disappear from its governance precedent. He referred to the proposal as a “treatment of harm itself”.
It's controversial to activate the threshold.
Saylor also questions the activation design of the proposal. According to reports, BIP-110 lowered the miner signal threshold to 55 per cent, down from the 95 per cent common in the past. At the same time, the proposal removes the common option of natural invalidity of the upgrade.
In his view, the risk of fragmentation could be further amplified if network implementation was inconsistent. According to the proposal to monitor the panel, the relevant signal rate is still below 1 per cent and there is still a significant gap from the threshold of 55 per cent.
The debate has spread to bitcoin governance.
Saylor described the dispute as a bi-tcoin-like discussion. He argued that the strength of the Bitcoin was not that all agreed on every use, but that, in the event of differences, the network was maintained by the rules of neutrality and strict consensus.
It was reported that Blockstream CEO Adam Back, Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp and Bitcoin Advocate Samson Mow were also opposed to BIP-110; the supporters included Luke Dashjr and Bitcoin Knots.
Additional information:At the time of the article, Strategy’s Bitcoin Treasury strategy was being adjusted. Companies have recently moved from “never sell” to “active capital management” and suspended the increase of bitcoin to raise the cash reserve to $3 billion to cover share dividends and interest on debt.