Michael Saylor slams BIP-110: ‘Nobody controls Bitcoin, the network has spoken’

In the ongoing debate over BIP-110, Michael Saylor recently claimed that although BIP-110 was permitted to challenge Bitcoin [BTC], it was widely rejected by the larger Bitcoin community.

For context, proponents of BIP-110 ran modified Bitcoin software with different rules to create a fork, and they were able to do so without obtaining permission thanks to Bitcoin’s design.

However, a fork only gains significance if it is adopted by a sufficient number of miners, users, wallets, exchanges, custodians, investors, and companies. In this case, the expected support was not fulfilled as Saylor claimed, 

About 99.85% of Bitcoin’s hashpower stayed with Bitcoin.

During this time, the BIP-110 branch only generated two blocks and, after reaching 961,632, fell more than 80 blocks behind. 

Saylor despises BIP-110

According to Saylor, supporters would need to mine about 2,015 more blocks at the current rate before they experience their first difficulty adjustment, which could take about 25 years. The matter is one of economic consensus rather than just the number of blocks mined by BIP-110.

Put simply, anyone can fork or copy the code of Bitcoin, but they cannot make the Bitcoin ecosystem accept their version as the real thing. Therefore, Saylor argues that BIP-110 shows that Bitcoin’s decentralized governance functions as intended.