Foundry seeks miner vote on Bitcoin data limit BIP-110

Foundry USA has formally asked its mining customers to vote on whether the pool should signal support for the BIP-110 upgrade. The proposal is a soft fork designed to significantly shrink the amount of data that can be stored in a single Bitcoin transaction.

By capping data capacity, BIP-110 aims to restrict non-monetary transactions on the network. The proposal specifically targets protocols like Ordinals, which embed data such as images and text directly onto the Bitcoin ledger. Limiting this activity would fundamentally change how the blockchain is utilized by market participants.

Foundry holds immense technical sway over network consensus. According to Hashrate Index, the pool accounts for 23.8% of the Bitcoin network’s total hashrate, making it the largest globally. Clients have until block 961,632, projected in early August, to cast their ballots via an emailed link using educational materials provided by Foundry.

The debate represents a fundamental clash over Bitcoin's core utility. Because soft forks require broad miner consensus to successfully activate without fracturing the network, Foundry’s stance could effectively dictate the proposal's viability. A decision by the pool to signal support would compel the broader industry to confront the upgrade's implications.

Several high-profile industry leaders have already articulated fierce opposition to the measure. Blockstream CEO Adam Back warned that BIP-110 "could be used to freeze user funds." Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, similarly criticized the proposal, stating that it "could invalidate ordinary transactions on the network."

For investors and market professionals, the vote underscores a persistent tension in the Bitcoin ecosystem. The network is caught between factions seeking to preserve it strictly as a monetary system and those leveraging it for broader data applications. The outcome of Foundry's poll will serve as a bellwether for the protocol's future development.