The BIP-110 activation threshold of 55% miner signalling sets a precedent that cuts sharply against Bitcoin’s historical soft-fork norms, and Michael Saylor has turned that gap into the centre of his opposition to the proposal.
Where previous Bitcoin soft forks required a 95% supermajority of miner signalling before activation, BIP-110 lowers that bar to 55%, equivalent to 1,109 of 2,016 consecutive blocks, according to Crypto Briefing. For a protocol that prizes conservative consensus formation, the reduction is the sharpest structural departure in the proposal.
What BIP-110 Actually Does, and When
BIP-110 is a temporary soft-fork proposal that would restrict OP_RETURN outputs and certain Taproot-embedded data, limiting how much non-payment data can be anchored on-chain. The rules are designed to expire automatically after roughly one year.
The mandatory miner signalling window opens near block 961,632, expected in early August 2026. If the 55% threshold clears, activation triggers at block 965,664, projected around 1 September 2026, according to Simple Mining Insights.
There is a second mechanism running in parallel. Under BIP-110’s User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) design, nodes running the activation client will begin enforcing the new rules on the August 2026 flag day regardless of whether miners have met the signalling threshold, per BGeometrics. That means enforcement can begin even if miners are broadly opposed.
Miner support has not materialised so far. The snippet reported signalling near zero on 12 July, having never exceeded roughly 1% in earlier periods. No major mining pool has publicly backed the proposal.
Saylor’s BIP-110 Activation Threshold Argument
Saylor framed his opposition around Bitcoin’s governance architecture. In a post on X, he described Bitcoin as an emergent network kept in balance by wallets weighted by satoshis held, nodes weighted by the commerce they serve, and miners weighted by hashrate provided. Capital, consensus, and security, in his framing, sit in dynamic equilibrium: no single group can rewrite the rules without drawing the others along.
That framing carried more weight on 18–19 July 2026, when Saylor published a detailed essay titled ‘110 Reasons BIP-110 Is a Bad Idea’, arguing the proposal threatens Bitcoin’s neutrality and opens the door to censorship, according to Crypto Briefing. In an earlier public statement, he said, ‘BIP 110 turns a spam dispute into a consensus change,’ warning that it would reject transactions the network currently treats as valid.
Blockstream co-founder Adam Back has also opposed the plan, warning that forced adoption could produce a chain split.
Supporters of BIP-110 argue the opposite: that unrestricted non-payment data bloats the chain, raises costs for node operators, and represents a form of free-riding on a network built for monetary settlement.
If nodes running the UASF client enforce BIP-110 while most miners and users reject it, those nodes would follow a minority chain. The 55% threshold is intended to reduce that risk, but with miner signalling near zero, the scenario is live.
Strategy’s Position in the Capital Layer
Saylor’s network model places corporate treasury holders in the wallet layer, weighted by satoshis. Strategy sits at the top of that layer. As of 19 July 2026, the company held 843,775 BTC acquired for an aggregate purchase price of $63.69 billion, at an average cost of $75,476 per bitcoin, according to an 8-K filing cited by StockTitan.
That balance gives Strategy the largest publicly traded corporate BTC position, but no formal authority over consensus rules. The snippet reported that the company sold 3,588 BTC for roughly $216 million between 29 June and 5 July, using the proceeds to fund dividends on its Digital Credit securities and lifting its dollar reserve to $2.55 billion.
During the week of 13–19 July, Strategy also sold 2,732,318 shares of MSTR Class A common stock under its at-the-market programme, generating $263.5 million in net proceeds, per the same 8-K. After those sales, $23,526.5 million of MSTR stock remained available under the existing authorisation.
The capital activity illustrates the point Saylor made about his own model: large holders can shift market attention and fund operations through BTC sales, but none of that translates into the ability to instruct miners or node operators on which software to run.
BIP-110’s August flag day will test whether the UASF node layer can enforce rules the miner layer has largely refused to signal. That is the coordination problem Saylor’s governance framework describes, now running in real time.
