Bitcoin Community in Turmoil, Understanding the Bitcoin Scaling Debate Caused by BIP-110

Original Article Title: "Bitcoin Community in Turmoil! Understanding the New Bitcoin Scaling War Caused by BIP-110"

On August 10, Luke Dashjr, a long-time Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) editor and co-founder/CTO of the Ocean mining pool, was removed from the editing team and lost his editing privileges. This action was taken because he bypassed the discussion process, preemptively assigned a number to the proposal, and had contributed little to the editing work in recent years while pushing for BIP-110.

The catalyst for this disciplinary action was a chain split that occurred a few days ago, the first true fork in the Bitcoin network since the Bitcoin Cash hard fork in 2017. On August 8, at block height 961,632, the Bitcoin network split into two parts: one group of nodes refused to follow the main chain and insisted on implementing BIP-110, a soft fork proposal drafted by Luke that prohibits nesting non-transactional data in transactions. A minority chain stalled after just one block, while the main chain continued normally, quickly pulling ahead by several blocks.

Who Controls the Ledger Space

On average, Bitcoin adds a new block every ten minutes, packaging transaction records for a period of time, and linking it to the previous block once filled with transactions for miners to confirm. While blocks mainly contain transaction information, there is no rule against including text, images, or even code as long as one is willing to pay for the space.

The conflict began with the release of Bitcoin Core 30 in October 2025, the most widely used node software on the Bitcoin network. This version lifted the 83-byte capacity limit on "OP_RETURN" (a field for additional information). This limit was originally just a software default recommendation, and removing it significantly reduced the cost of including non-transactional data.

However, some community members disagreed with this change. They started running another software called Bitcoin Knots, which is free and open-source but maintains the old limit. The user adoption of Bitcoin Knots, which was nearly zero in early 2024, increased to over 22% within two years.

BIP-110 was proposed against this backdrop. They aimed to enshrine Knots' limit in Bitcoin's fundamental consensus rules, making it a network-wide requirement. Initially numbered BIP-444, the proposal included language about imposing "legal and moral consequences" on non-compliers, which sparked backlash and was later removed. In December 2025, it was renumbered to BIP-110.

What started as a technical debate has evolved into a power struggle.

Trusting What's at Stake with Low Entry Barriers

A Bitcoin soft fork typically requires miners (individuals or organizations running specialized equipment to secure the network, earn Bitcoin rewards) to signal their intention: by inserting a signal marker in a block. The new rule only takes effect once the threshold of signaling hash rate is reached. The historical convention is a high threshold of 95%, meaning almost all miners must agree to activate the new rule to avoid a split.

However, BIP-110 has lowered the threshold to 55% and added a mandatory activation clause: even if the support rate falls short, nodes running the patch will automatically reject blocks that do not comply with the new rule.

The threshold can be hardcoded, but whether miners are willing to cooperate is another matter.

Since entering the signaling period on May 1st, support has never exceeded 3%; as the final signaling period before the mandatory activation deadline approaches, the support rate has only climbed to about 2.53%.

Mining pools such as Foundry USA and AntPool have not expressed support. The majority of supporting votes come from Ocean Mining Pool and some independent miners. F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun openly criticized Luke, suggesting he is "bankrupt in terms of finance and personal reputation," and joking that he might as well switch to a different Proof of Work algorithm, as the outcome wouldn't be any better.

Strategy founder Michael Saylor listed "110 Reasons" against it, believing that once rules can be filtered based on transaction content, Bitcoin's neutrality is compromised. Security expert Jameson Lopp was more direct, calling it "reckless" and "doomed to fail," as data can be encoded in a different way to bypass restrictions, potentially causing some transaction outputs to be perpetually unspendable.

A Fork That Only Lasted One Block

On August 8th, as the block height reached 961,632, nodes running the BIP-110 patch refused to acknowledge the block as it did not carry the required signal for the new rule. Instead, they rejected it and mined a separate block under their own rules, thus causing the split. This new chain initially received support of around 2.53% of the total network hash rate, equivalent to roughly 1 out of every 40 mining machines worldwide willing to mine on the new chain.

However, the minority chain only managed to produce one additional block and has not seen any further updates since. The chain with more hash rate moved faster and further ahead. The main chain consistently produced a block every ten minutes, leaving the minority chain trailing by 243 blocks (data from bip110.mempool.guide).

Japan's bitFlyer announced on August 10th that they would continue to monitor the impact of BIP-110 without committing to a course of action. Additionally, no major exchange has expressed support for the minority chain, a stark contrast to the widespread issuance of guidance seen during the Bitcoin Cash fork in 2017.

What to really watch out for is self-custodied nodes running Bitcoin Knots: BIP-110 lacks "replay protection," meaning the same transaction may be considered valid on both chains, leading to a potential double spend if not handled correctly.

The BIP-110 largest miner who mined that block, "Roughnecks," temporarily halted production and then, on August 10, decided to resume mining. However, by that time, their signaling hashrate had plummeted from over 15 EH/s to 1.16 EH/s, with no new blocks on the chain. The economic cost of continuing to mine had already surpassed the rewards.

But supporters do not seem ready to give up. The proposal's author, Dathon Ohm, and Luke, who recently lost their editing privileges, have indeed started discussing the path that King Chuan sarcastically mentioned in the past. This involves changing the proof-of-work algorithm, deterring ASIC miners, and transforming a minority chain into a new independent coin. This idea is currently still in the discussion and code experimentation phase.

However, regardless of the next steps taken, this farce reaffirms the rule set established at Bitcoin's inception: Rules can be drafted by a minority, editing permissions can be self-granted, but the ultimate decision-makers are the miners willing to continue burning electricity for this chain and the exchanges and users who decide which chain holds valid transactions.

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