Bitcoin's BIP-110 fight heads for its August showdown

Bitcoin’s long-running argument over on-chain data is about to get a deadline. In early August — around block 961,632, expected on August 7 — the signaling window opens for BIP-110, a proposed one-year soft fork that bundles seven restrictions on data-heavy transactions. The proposal first surfaced in October 2025 as BIP-444, a reaction to Bitcoin Core v30 lifting its OP_RETURN limits. Nodes that enforce the new rules would start rejecting non-signaling blocks, with the restrictions taking effect around September 1 for those runners.

Ocean CTO Luke Dashjr and other supporters frame the fork as anti-spam protection for Bitcoin’s monetary core. Michael Saylor disagrees at length: his 110-point essay argues consensus rules cannot judge a transaction’s purpose and should not try — “Bitcoin does not need guardians of purity. It needs guardians of neutrality.” Blockstream CEO Adam Back is likewise opposed. The numbers currently favor the skeptics: miner signaling sits at 0.86 percent, a long way from the 55 percent required for an early lock-in.

If you run a node, there is no need to rush anything — choose your client deliberately and watch the signaling numbers once August arrives.