Bitcoin Spam Proposal Dies Amid Opposition, CLARITY Vote Delayed

A proposal to eradicate spam from Bitcoin's blockchain, known as BIP-110, has been deemed dead on arrival. After securing only 2.5% support ahead of mandatory signaling, the soft fork split off into a minority chain that failed to gain traction. The difficulty adjustment mechanism would have required another 2,014 blocks to be mined, but without any hope of recouping costs through block rewards, miners abandoned ship.

The proposal aimed to eliminate non-financial transactions like Ordinals, but opponents saw it as imposing censorship on the chain and undermining Bitcoin's neutral rules. Prominent advocates, including Michael Saylor and Adam Back, spoke out against BIP-110, warning that its approach could damage Bitcoin's credibility and potentially render certain unspent transaction outputs unusable.

Meanwhile, a vote on the CLARITY Act has been postponed until September 15. Despite initial hopes for a last-minute agreement before the August recess, Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to force the issue, citing opposition from Democratic senators.