Bitcoin's most contested proposal in years crossed a key threshold over the weekend. At block 961,632, reached around 19:35 UTC on Saturday, BIP-110 entered its mandatory signaling window, the phase in which miners must publicly declare whether they support the change. The window runs until block 965,664, roughly four weeks out, but the early numbers are stark: less than 2.5% of miners are signaling in favor, far short of the 55% needed for activation.
BIP-110 would temporarily restrict non-financial data, including Ordinals inscriptions and large OP_RETURN payloads, from being embedded directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. Supporters argue the change protects block space for financial transactions; opponents call it an attempt to dictate acceptable Bitcoin use cases through a rushed, minority-backed process.
Miners Are Staying Quiet
Behind the low headline number is an even thinner base of active participation. Reporting on the signaling data shows major pools including Foundry, Antpool and ViaBTC have not signaled either way, with most of the pro-BIP-110 hashrate coming from Ocean and a scattering of independent miners such as Roughnecks and Barefoot Mining. Foundry has said it would need more than 51% of its own pool's hashrate to back the proposal before it would signal, a bar that hasn't been reached.
A Fight Over Activation Method, Not Just Content
The proposal's backers are pursuing activation through a User-Activated Soft Fork, meaning node operators rather than miners would ultimately enforce the rule by rejecting blocks from non-signaling miners. That strategy echoes the 2017 SegWit activation, when user pressure forced adoption despite incomplete miner buy-in — a precedent BIP-110 supporters cite directly.
Critics see the comparison as a stretch given how much lower support is this time. MicroStrategy chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream chief executive Adam Back have both publicly opposed the plan, with Back specifically warning that forcing activation on roughly 2.5% miner support risks a genuine chain split, splintering Bitcoin into two competing networks if enough nodes and miners end up on opposite sides of the rule.
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Four Weeks on the Clock
With the signaling window open until block 965,664, the debate now shifts to whether support builds meaningfully in the coming weeks or whether the proposal stalls out well below its threshold. Either outcome carries risk: a forced activation on thin support could fracture consensus, while a failed attempt would leave the underlying dispute over how Bitcoin's block space should be used unresolved.
