Bitcoin is going through a rare moment of tension. The debate around BIP 110 is not just about a technical update. It touches on the very definition of bitcoin, its neutrality and the limit of what the network must accept.
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In brief
- Bitcoin splits around BIP 110.
- The text aims to temporarily restrict certain non-monetary data on the blockchain.
- The real shock concerns governance and the border between network protection and censorship.
BIP 110 revives an old internal war
Bitcoin is fracturing today around a seemingly simple question. Should the network remain a minimalist monetary tool, or tolerate broader uses on its blockchain? The sticking point is called BIP 110, a project still at the draft stage, presented as a temporary soft fork intended to reduce the place of arbitrary data in transactions.
One point must be clarified from the outset. Contrary to some confusing presentations, BIP 110 does not aim to replace the longest chain rule with a miner vote on valid blocks. The text published in the official BIP repository describes something else. A temporary limitation, at the consensus level, of several forms of data integrated into Bitcoin.
Clearly, the proposal seeks to curb uses deemed non-monetary, such as certain data inscriptions, large scripts and certain vectors assimilated to “spam” by its supporters. Its author, Dathon Ohm, presents this as a way of refocusing Bitcoin on its function as digital money.
The real subject is not technical, it is political
The debate seems technical, but it is above all political in the bitcoin sense of the term. Behind BIP 110, the real question is that of power: who decides what Bitcoin should become? Developers, miners, node operators, or the market itself?
Supporters of the text judge that the blockchain is gradually becoming overloaded with uses unrelated either to payments or to the monetary vocation of Bitcoin. For them, allowing these practices to flourish means increasing costs, increasing the work of node operators and degrading the experience of ordinary users. The BIP document emphasizes precisely this cost for decentralization and the pressure exerted on the UTXO set.
Opponents see a deeper danger. Adam Back denounced an intervention at the consensus level which could damage the credibility of Bitcoin as a store of value and open the door to a logic of transactional censorship. This camp does not necessarily defend registrations. Above all, he defends the idea that a consensus rule should not be modified due to temporary irritation.
Bitcoin: a threshold of 55% which ignites the debate
The controversy has further intensified because of the activation mechanism. BIP 110 proposes a threshold of 55% computing power. Very far from the standard of 95% often associated with significant changes in Bitcoin. The text assumes this choice in the name of urgency and the temporary nature of the measure. This is precisely what worries part of the ecosystem.
This detail changes everything. With a lower threshold, critics fear that a precedent will be set. Today to limit arbitrary data, tomorrow for something else. In Bitcoin, precedents matter almost as much as code. Once a community accepts that a narrower majority can impose a restriction on the consensus level, the red line becomes blurred.
Even the narrative around mining reporting illustrates this extreme sensitivity. In March 2026, a first block favorable to BIP 110 sent a signal via an infrastructure linked to Ocean, before several reports specified that a solo miner was using this software, without official commitment from the pool. In such a climate, each block becomes a political message.
Bitcoin plays more than its technique in the coming weeks
Michael Saylor reignited the tension by asserting that Bitcoin had already won the battle for the global narrative, but that its biggest risk now remained bad ideas capable of causing harmful protocol changes. This sentence gave new relief to the debate, because it directly links technical governance to the future value of the network.
The timing further reinforces the importance of the subject. The Bitcoin 2026 conference remains scheduled for Las Vegas from April 27 to 29, virtually the same time as the Fed meeting on April 28 and 29. On the one hand, the market will watch for the macroeconomic message. On the other hand, the Bitcoin ecosystem will continue to argue over the direction of the protocol.
Basically, BIP 110 acts as a developer. Bitcoin is not only crossed by a dispute over spam or registrations. He faces a more brutal question: how far can he evolve without betraying himself? As long as this answer remains unclear, each proposed change will bring the same crack to the surface. And this crack, today, has a name: BTC.
