That remark pointed directly at BIP-110.
The proposal, introduced by developer Dathon Ohm and supported by the Bitcoin Knots team, seeks a temporary one-year soft fork that would restrict non-monetary data in Bitcoin transactions. It targets Ordinals inscriptions, BRC-20 tokens and large OP_RETURN payloads that critics say bloat the blockchain and raise costs for node operators.
The first block signaling support for BIP-110 was mined by the Ocean pool in Mar. 2026. The proposal sets a 55% hash power activation threshold — well below the 95% consensus standard traditionally used for Bitcoin upgrades.
Adam Back's Warning
The community remains sharply divided. Supporters frame BIP-110 as a defense of Bitcoin's identity as sound money, arguing that arbitrary data competes with payments and drives up fees for ordinary users.
Blockstream CEO Adam Back took the opposite view. He warned that consensus-level restrictions could damage Bitcoin's credibility as a store of value and set a precedent for future transaction censorship.
Back wrote on X that BIP-110 restrictions are "bypassable" and that the real cost lies in innovation damage. He argued that Bitcoin's strength rests on neutral, predictable rules — and that the proposal trades that foundation for what he called a spam filter that fails at filtering spam.
Both the Bitcoin 2026 Conference and a Federal Reserve meeting are scheduled for late April, creating a concentrated period of potential catalysts for the market. The BIP-110 signaling process remains active, with a possible activation decision approaching later in 2026.
Alexey Bondarev is the Head of Content at Yellow.com, having reported on crypto for the last 10 years. He specializes in in-depth Research and Learn pieces, with a focus on analytical reporting, industry context, and the bigger forces shaping crypto, from the AI era and security technologies to fintech innovation. He believes that everything digital will imminently overcome everything analogue and is working hard to make that come true.
