BIP-110: CAN BITCOIN STILL SAY NO?

There are times when Bitcoin stops being a mere computer protocol and reverts to what it has always fundamentally been: a philosophical battlefield. BIP-110 is one such moment. On the surface, the topic seems technical, almost dry, almost reserved for a few developers, a few node operators, a few maximalists at war against bytes deemed impure. But in reality, the question it raises is much broader. It touches upon Bitcoin's very identity. Not its price. Not its institutional storytelling. Not its adoption by Wall Street. Its profound nature. Should a neutral monetary network tolerate everything its rules permit, even when it looks like noise, opportunistic pollution, or a gradual capture of block space by uses that have little to do with money? Or should it, at some point, close the door and clearly state: this is not what this is for?

BIP-110, officially titled Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, is a proposed evolution of the Bitcoin consensus. Its objective is simple to state, even if it's explosive to embrace: temporarily limit certain ways of inserting arbitrary data into transactions to refocus Bitcoin on its monetary function. The official text doesn't beat around the bush. It explains that Bitcoin must remain oriented towards the world's money, not become an implicitly accepted medium for data storage that has no place on its base layer. This is therefore not a secondary dispute among purists. It is an attempt to redraw the boundary of what Bitcoin accepts to be.

To understand why this proposal emerged, one must look at what has happened in recent years. With the rise of inscriptions, Ordinals, and other uses consisting of embedding images, messages, or non-monetary structures into transactions, a part of the ecosystem began to consider that something was drifting. Critics are not just talking about an aesthetic problem. They are talking about a structural problem. The more unnecessary data the chain carries for its monetary function, the higher the cost of validation, storage, and network operation. Yet a heavier network is not a minor detail in Bitcoin. It's a network that gradually becomes more expensive to run in a sovereign manner, and therefore potentially less decentralized.

The core of BIP-110 is harsher than it seems. According to Bitcoin Optech's technical summary, the proposal would invalidate certain overly long scriptPubKeys, cap certain pushdata and witness areas, exclude certain expenditures related to older undefined witness versions, prohibit certain uses of overly large Taproot annexes and control blocks, and even disable several constructions considered vectors of abuse in Tapscript. In short, it's not about whispering "please spam less." It's about introducing new limits at the consensus level on what a valid block can contain. And as soon as we touch upon that, we are no longer discussing optimization. We are discussing power, doctrine, and precedent.

Proponents of BIP-110 start from an austere, almost Roman idea. A protocol does not have to bless all the uses it makes possible. Just because something is feasible does not mean it should be considered legitimate, desirable, or sustainable in the long term. The BIP text emphasizes that certain data formats can impose lasting costs on node operators, especially when they burden elements that must remain quickly accessible for validation. It also explains that modern monetary uses do not need gigantic structures in these fields. In other words, if certain transactions take on dimensions that far exceed what a censorship-resistant currency requires, it may simply be that they serve another purpose. And it is precisely this "other purpose" that BIP-110 seeks to push out of the base layer.

The important word here is not purity. It's friction. BIP-110 does not claim to forever eliminate all attempts to hijack Bitcoin to house arbitrary data. Its authors know very well that human inventiveness will never be totally suppressed, especially when supported by transaction fees. Their logic is both more modest and harsher. It is about making certain uses more costly, more cumbersome, less fluid, less natural. Not cleaning up the world. Simply re-establishing a technical landscape that discourages non-monetary uses without breaking monetary ones. It's a strategy of resistance, not perfection.

Where the proposal becomes genuinely nervous is that it is conceived as temporary. The official text presents this idea as a kind of provisional soft fork, intended to quickly block the most aggressive uses while a more refined solution could be considered in the longer term. On paper, this may seem reasonable. In Bitcoin, it's almost worse. Nothing is more suspicious than an exceptional measure supposedly temporary. A global monetary protocol does not operate on trust in good intentions. It operates on the extreme difficulty of changing its rules. As soon as a change is presented as an emergency solution, an alarm goes off. Not because it is necessarily bad, but because it sets a precedent. And in Bitcoin, precedents weigh heavily.

It is precisely on this point that the harshest criticisms have focused. Jameson Lopp, in his analysis published at the end of February 2026, attacked BIP-110 as a dangerous, clumsy, and potentially destabilizing response for the network. His central reproach is not merely technical. It is political in the profound sense of the term. He considers that such a contentious consensus change, pushed with a modified activation and a lowered signaling threshold compared to the ecosystem's most cautious habits, significantly increases the risk of social and technical fracture. In a system like Bitcoin, a disagreement over what constitutes a valid block is never a theoretical quarrel. It is the kind of disagreement that can freeze services, disorient users, and reopen the specter of a split.

The authors of BIP-110 do not entirely deny the existence of potential costs. The official text acknowledges that some restrictions may hinder more advanced uses related to Taproot or more complex constructions. It also admits that some software habits might need to be adapted. But their response is clear: a temporary and targeted inconvenience is better than a base layer progressively colonized by behaviors that divert block space from its monetary vocation. Their logic is that of a surgeon who prefers a scar to an infection. The problem, of course, is that no one agrees on the diagnosis, let alone the acceptable dose of scalpel.

Conversely, opponents see the opposite danger. In their view, the true cost of BIP-110 is not primarily technical. It is normative. It lies in the simple fact that one day, Bitcoin would begin not only to apply neutral rules, but to give the impression of filtering certain uses deemed impure, harmful, or unworthy of the base layer. Even if BIP proponents argue that they are not censoring content but merely re-establishing technical limits, the fear remains. As soon as a protocol begins to be perceived as capable of distinguishing between good and bad uses, it becomes more vulnerable to other demands for discrimination, for other reasons, with other justifications. And it is precisely this symbolic shift that many reject.

This is where the debate ceases to be reserved for developers and once again becomes a classic Bitcoin tragedy. Bitcoin has always lived with an internal tension between two visions of protocol protection. The first asserts that absolute neutrality is its condition for survival. It doesn't matter whether a use is noble, vulgar, speculative, or ridiculous. If the rules allow it and the fees are paid, the network has no business moralizing. The second asserts that neutrality does not imply passivity in the face of uglification or capture. A protocol can refuse to become a highway for parasitic uses without betraying its vocation. It can defend its base layer as a rare, costly, and demanding monetary infrastructure. BIP-110 is the head-on collision between these two intuitions. Neither is absurd. Neither is flawless.

There is, moreover, an irony in this matter. Even some critics of BIP-110 recognize that the discomfort targeted by the proposal is not entirely imaginary. The debate is not just about whether a problem exists. It's about how to address it. Opponents believe that the fee market and the natural scarcity of block space are already disciplining these uses. Proponents of the BIP, on the other hand, believe that if no clear signal is sent, these behaviors will eventually take root, normalize, and silently redefine what the base layer becomes. In one case, trust is placed in the protocol's economics. In the other, the doctrine is to be reasserted through consensus. Again, this is not a mere technical detail. It is a divergence on how Bitcoin itself should defend itself.

The debate has, moreover, left the realm of mere theory. By early 2026, the proposal was no longer just a stylistic exercise on an obscure mailing list. Mining signals began to appear around BIP-110, proof that the subject had moved beyond developer commentary to enter Bitcoin's actual political layer. This does not mean that its adoption is certain. Far from it. It merely means that the question has ceased to be abstract. It is now serious enough for some actors to try to make it exist in the language of the blocks themselves.

It is also important to be clear on one point, because some articles have reported nonsense. BIP-110 does not change the fundamental rule that Bitcoin follows the chain that has accumulated the most valid work. It does not transform consensus into a mining popularity contest. It does not replace the deep logic of the protocol with an arbitrary vote on the "good block." This confusion has circulated in some media, but it does not correspond to the official text. The real subject of BIP-110 is much more specific and much more interesting: to what extent is Bitcoin willing to restrict certain non-monetary data vectors to protect its base layer?

Ultimately, the real question isn't "spam or no spam?" This phrase is too simplistic for such a subject. The real question is this: should Bitcoin be defined by what it allows, or by what it refuses to encourage? As long as the chain remained predominantly a monetary space, this ambiguity could lie dormant. With contemporary inscriptions and appropriations, it is now exposed in full light. If Bitcoin does nothing, it tacitly accepts that block space can be captured by uses that dilute its raison d'être. If it acts, it risks eroding the neutrality that underpins its legitimacy. It's a maturity trap. Successful systems inevitably attract uses they were never designed to serve.

BIP-110 thus reveals much more than a disagreement over a few script fields. It reveals a deep anxiety within Bitcoin: that of seeing the protocol become vast before remaining faithful. For years, everyone has claimed to want to protect Bitcoin. But protecting Bitcoin does not mean the same thing depending on where one stands. For some, protecting Bitcoin means preventing its base layer from being colonized by opportunistic and costly uses. For others, protecting Bitcoin means preventing a momentary majority or a militant coalition from starting to define which uses are pure and which are not. Between these two instincts, there is no perfect solution. Only compromises, costs, precedents. And in Bitcoin, precedents count almost as much as code.

The most interesting thing, ultimately, is perhaps that BIP-110 forces everyone to reveal their intimate definition of Bitcoin. Is it a minimal monetary machine, which must be defended against any functional deviation, even at the cost of an explicit act of closure? Or is it a radically neutral protocol, whose strength comes precisely from the fact that it never asks why a user pays to enter a block? This dilemma is not comfortable. It cannot be resolved with a slogan. It exposes a fracture that the ecosystem has carried within itself for a long time. Simply, this time, it has a number, a text, and a battlefield.

BIP-110 is therefore not a technical detail lost in the limbo of GitHub. It is a dress rehearsal for a question that will come up again and again over the years: to what extent should Bitcoin remain neutral when this neutrality becomes the gateway for uses that obscure its purpose? One might find this proposal necessary. One might judge it dangerous. One might even think it will never pass. But one cannot pretend that it says nothing essential. It asks a question that Bitcoin will have to answer one day, explicitly or through inertia: can a global monetary protocol survive without ever saying no?

To deeply understand Bitcoin, from its creation by Satoshi Nakamoto to its role in the global economy, it is essential to master its foundations. Here are the essential pages to discover Bitcoin, how it works, its importance, and its evolution: