Adam Back Rejects BIP-110 as Risk to Bitcoin Integrity
The CEO of Blockstream, Adam Back, has voiced strong opposition to a proposed measure aimed at curbing Ordinals-related “spam” on the Bitcoin network. He cautioned that implementing this fix might inflict greater damage on the network’s reputation than the issue it seeks to resolve.
In December, a pseudonymous Bitcoin developer named Dathon Ohm introduced Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP-110). Recent data indicates that approximately 7.5% of Bitcoin nodes, specifically those operating on Bitcoin Knots software, have signaled their support for adopting BIP-110.
This proposal aims to temporarily limit the volume of data that can be embedded within Bitcoin transactions. The goal is to mitigate the influx of images, videos, audio files, and various other forms of what proponents call “data abuse” overwhelming the network.
Adam Back concurs that Bitcoin ought to serve primarily as “sound money.” Nevertheless, in a recent post on X shared on Sunday, he argued that pursuing a consensus-level modification like BIP-110 is not justified. He described it as “an attack” on Bitcoin’s established credibility as a dependable store of value and a robust monetary system.
Back characterized the push for BIP-110 as “a lynch mob attempt to force through changes lacking broad consensus.” He further emphasized that the so-called spam represents merely “an annoyance” and does not present any genuine security risks to the Bitcoin network’s operations.
BIP-110 functions as a short-term intervention designed to curb the storage of arbitrary data on the blockchain. It provides the Bitcoin community with a 12-month window to thoroughly assess the consequences of such data while core developers formulate a more permanent resolution.
Support for BIP-110 has notably increased among validators utilizing Bitcoin Knots. This variant began capturing a larger portion of the market from Bitcoin Core during the latter part of 2025. The shift accelerated after Bitcoin Core developers eliminated the longstanding 80-byte restriction on the OP_RETURN opcode in late October, which inadvertently facilitated a surge in non-financial transactions across the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin Core’s dominance over Bitcoin nodes has declined sharply, dropping from nearly 98% to around 77.2%. This change stems from heated discussions within the community about the types of transactions permissible on the network. Consequently, Bitcoin Knots has seen its share climb to 22.7%.
Adam Back numbers among the prominent figures who resisted the removal of the 80-byte OP_RETURN limit. In a September statement, he asserted that spam akin to Ordinals “has no place in the timechain.”
That said, Back highlighted a critical drawback of solutions like BIP-110: the risk of rendering certain unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) unspendable, potentially leading to frozen funds. Developer Dathon Ohm conceded that fund freezing remains a theoretical possibility but stressed that “this proposal goes to great pains to avoid affecting any known use cases.”
Advocates for non-financial transactions, such as Bitcoin Ordinals pioneer Leonidas, point out that the Ordinals and Runes ecosystems have generated more than $500 million in transaction fees. These revenues have bolstered Bitcoin’s overall security model, a vital consideration as the mining block subsidy diminishes with each halving event occurring roughly every four years.
Bitcoin Ordinals Activity Experiences Sharp Decline
Despite these contributions, analytics from Dune reveal a stark downturn in Ordinals inscription activity. By the close of 2025, daily fees from Ordinals inscriptions had dwindled to under $10,000 for Bitcoin miners, undermining their viability as a steady revenue stream from non-financial uses.
The zenith of Ordinals activity occurred over two years prior, on December 16, 2023, when miners reaped nearly $10 million in fees from a single day. Following that peak, fee generation has followed a persistent downward trajectory, punctuated only by fleeting surges during brief periods of heightened interest.
