Saylor, Back reject BIP-110 Bitcoin fork to limit Ordinals
Top Bitcoin advocates Michael Saylor and Adam Back have rejected a proposed network fork to limit Ordinals, effectively neutralizing a protocol dispute that risked splitting the blockchain.
Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream CEO Adam Back have publicly opposed BIP-110, a proposed temporary fork designed to restrict non-monetary transactions like Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin network.
The intervention matters for investors because the proposal represents the most notable protocol-level dispute since the Blocksize Wars of 2015 to 2017, a period of intense friction that previously threatened to divide the blockchain and disrupt markets.
Introduced in December 2025 by pseudonymous developer "Dathon Ohm" and supported by Ocean protocol founder Luke Dashjr, BIP-110 aims to curb network bloat by temporarily banning arbitrary data for one year. Proponents argue Ordinals-driven spam poses a "serious threat" to Bitcoin's viability as a peer-to-peer cash system.
However, the practical urgency behind the proposal is fading. Daily Ordinals inscriptions have dropped to fewer than 10,000 over the past month, a steep decline from a peak of over 400,000 in August 2023.
Despite sharing critics' distaste for network spam, Saylor warned that altering the protocol carries greater risks. "There are 110 things more dangerous to Bitcoin than spam," Saylor said in a post to X on Saturday, warning the fork could accidentally invalidate ordinary transactions.
Back framed his opposition around Bitcoin's foundational architecture, describing the effort as a "quest to police other people." He argued that true decentralization means "you can’t impose your views on others," noting that permissionless, censorship-resistant money is incompatible with such restrictions.
BIP-110 proponents maintain the one-year limit prevents long-term disruption and deny it would cause a chain split. Yet node operators appear unswayed by these arguments. Activation requires 55% of validating nodes to signal support during a given block period. During the most recent period, between blocks 955,584 and 957,599, support stood at just 1%.
