Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 entered its mandatory-signaling phase at block 961,632 on Saturday, testing a contentious plan to impose temporary limits on non-financial data stored on the network. Monitor data showed miners had set the required version bit 4 in only 51 of the preceding 2,016 blocks, or 2.53 percent—well below the 55 percent level associated with early activation.

Nodes enforcing BIP-110 started rejecting any block that lacked the version bit, while standard nodes continued accepting both signaling and non-signaling blocks. The divergence produced an immediate split. Antpool mined the block that extended the dominant chain, while the BIP-110-aligned pool Roughnecks produced a competing version of the same height.

What the Proposal Seeks to Restrict

Drafted by the pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm with technical input from Bitcoin Knots maintainer Luke Dashjr, BIP-110 is formally known as the Reduced Data Temporary Softfork. It would apply consensus rules for roughly one year, or about 52,416 blocks if activated on the stated schedule.

The rules would limit most new output scripts to 34 bytes, cap OP_RETURN outputs at 83 bytes, restrict certain data pushes and witness elements to 256 bytes, and place temporary constraints on several Taproot-related features. Unspent outputs created before activation would remain unaffected. Supporters present the limits as a response to inscriptions and other non-monetary uses that increase storage and bandwidth costs for full-node operators.

Minority Chain Emerges Then Lags

Once enforcing nodes rejected the non-signaling block at height 961,632, a BIP-110 branch formed. Roughnecks followed with a second block at 961,633. By that point the main chain had already advanced substantially farther. Reports later placed the minority tip roughly 18 blocks behind.

The split coincided with a difficulty adjustment that raised the network target to approximately 127.48 trillion. With only a small fraction of hash power behind the enforcing rules, block production on the minority side slowed markedly. Simple Mining, which routes hashrate through Ocean’s DATUM system, produced a subsequent block on the dominant chain, showing that even some Ocean-linked capacity did not move in lockstep with the BIP-110 branch.

Luke Dashjr issued a public notice urging users to upgrade to recent Bitcoin Knots releases, stating that nodes running older software risked accepting counterfeit coins in a double-spend scenario. He described major pools as attacking the network by continuing to produce non-signaling blocks.

Critics Warn of Division

Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream CEO Adam Back have both opposed the proposal. They argued it could divide the network and cause some nodes to reject transactions that remain valid under existing consensus rules. Saylor stated ahead of the signaling window that the low miner participation meant the effort would stall or fork into irrelevance while the main chain continued normally.

Supporters frame BIP-110 as a user-activated soft fork, relying on node operators rather than miners to enforce the change. They cite the 2017 activation of SegWit through BIP-148 as precedent. In the current case, however, the combination of single-digit miner signaling and an immediate lag in block production has left the enforcing branch with limited momentum.

Timeline and Contingency Discussions

The mandatory-signaling window runs from blocks 961,632 through 963,647. Block 963,648 is defined as the start of a locked-in state, and block 965,664 is the point at which the transaction-size restrictions would take effect—approximately four weeks after the window opened.

On August 1, developer Chris Guida rebased preliminary code for a proof-of-work algorithm change originally written by Dashjr. Guida described the work as a contingency in the event miners continued to oppose BIP-110, though no activation date was set.

As the mandatory window continues, attention remains on whether additional hash power joins the enforcing branch, whether node adoption grows enough to exert further pressure, or whether the minority chain continues to lag under the elevated difficulty. For now, the dominant chain has maintained clear lead in block production while the BIP-110 ruleset operates with only marginal miner participation.