Bitcoin BIP-110 Fails to Gain Traction, Dies Amid Opposition

The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 110, aimed at eradicating spam from the blockchain by eliminating non-financial transactions like Ordinals, has met its demise. Despite securing just 2.5% support ahead of mandatory signaling on Saturday, it was unable to gain traction and split off into a minority chain that mined only two blocks in eight hours before stalling.

The proposal's inability to attract significant support is likely due to the fact that mining on the new chain would have been just as difficult and expensive as on Bitcoin itself, without any hope of selling the block reward to recoup costs. The difficulty would have adjusted downward if they'd managed to mine through another 2,014 blocks.

Opponents of BIP-110, including prominent Bitcoin advocates like Michael Saylor, argued that it threatened Bitcoin's neutral rules and consensus. Blockstream CEO Adam Back also warned that the proposed consensus-level change could damage Bitcoin's credibility and potentially make certain unspent transaction outputs unspendable.