Bitcoin’s consensus rules have historically treated valid transactions the same, regardless of their purpose. BIP-110 raised concerns that rules aimed at discouraging one category of transactions risked opening the door to future restrictions on others.
BIP-110 rejected
The manner in which the proposal was approved was also controversial. Bitcoin upgrades typically only happen after massive support emerges from miners, businesses, wallet providers, and the broader ecosystem. BIP-110, in contrast, reignited discussions around a user-directed activation approach, with upgraded nodes enforcing the new rules if predefined conditions were met.
Supporters saw this as a necessary safeguard if miners refused to take action against what they saw as abuse of block space. Opponents have warned that attempting to introduce new consensus rules without broad agreement risks creating incompatible versions of Bitcoin, a scenario many veterans still associate with the divisive wars of 2017.
This is where the BIP-110 failed to gain support. Mining companies had little inventiveness in rejecting deals paying competitive fees, while institutional investors had no appetite for governance battles.
Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, the largest company holding Bitcoin said BIP-110 “transforms a spam dispute into a consensual change that would invalidate certain currently valid paid transactions.”
“This precedent constitutes the danger,” he wrote on X on July 11. “We need to save our energy for the threats that really matter.”
