BIP-110, Spam, and Bitcoin Governance

Summary

The February 23, 2026 episode of the Bitcoin Infinity Show features Hodlonaut reflecting on his brief public support for BIP-110 and why he withdrew it. He describes how a year away from the scene, followed by Bitcoin Core’s decision to uncap OP_RETURN, led to an emotional endorsement of a restrictive soft fork framed as a defense of Bitcoin’s monetary principles. The conversation dissects the technical, governance, and cultural stakes of BIP-110, from spam and Taproot’s unintended uses to risks of unspendable coins, tribalism, and shifting norms inside Bitcoin development.

Take-Home Messages

1. Core Governance Under Scrutiny: The uncapping of OP_RETURN in version 0.30 is portrayed as an arrogant policy change that weakened trust in Bitcoin Core’s stewardship.
2. BIP-110 as Plebs’ Countermove: BIP-110 is framed as a user-driven attempt to reassert monetary focus by making arbitrary data and spam more expensive, even at the cost of controversy.
3. Risk to Edge-Case Scripts: Critics warn that BIP-110 may strand some complex multisig and time-locked arrangements, raising precedent-setting questions about previously valid constructions.
4. Lessons from Past Upgrades: The discussion treats Taproot and ordinals as a cautionary tale about feature upgrades whose dominant use case diverges from their advertised purpose.
5. Culture and Tribalism Matter: Concerns about “pleb slop” rhetoric, DEI politics, and reputational backlash underscore that development culture and discourse norms are now governance variables.

Overview

Hodlonaut recounts how a year away from Bitcoin, following an exhausting legal fight over identity attacks, left him underinformed when he returned to find Core had uncapped OP_RETURN in version 0.30. He describes feeling “mind blown” by what he saw as dismissive responses, technical handwaving, and a “pleb slop” narrative aimed at principled critics. In that emotional state, he publicly endorsed BIP-110 as a way to resist what he perceived as a slide away from Bitcoin as money, only to later withdraw his support after deeper reflection and private conversations.

Hodlonaut revisits the blocksize wars as a reference point, emphasizing that earlier attempts to raise block size were seen as a hostile takeover by vested interests. He highlights how user-activated soft forks, futures markets, and miner capitulation once demonstrated that an intolerant minority of users could stop a controversial hard fork. At the same time, he stresses that the present conflict differs because Core is now seen by many as being on the opposite side of the pleb minority, complicating efforts to draw simple analogies between BIP-110 and earlier user-driven victories.

From there, the conversation drills into the substance of BIP-110, which would tighten limits on output sizes, data pushes, and certain Taproot features to make spam and ordinals-style inscriptions much more expensive. Hodlonaut welcomes the idea of “rugging” spammers and sees little justification for embedding arbitrary data when Bitcoin’s purpose is to be money, yet he remains uneasy about scenarios where complex multisig and time-locked constructions might become unspendable. Ordinary monetary use cases are not targeted, but how much weight to give to fringe setups is problematic and the precedent of invalidating any previously accepted constructions.

The conversation turns to culture, incentives, and reputational risk, arguing that backlash and accusations of betrayal discourage many public figures from taking clear positions. Hodlonaut acknowledges his own credibility cost from “flip-flopping” yet insists that changing one’s mind with new information is essential in a system with no central authority. He contrasts adoption-at-all-costs strategies, which blur Bitcoin with speculative tokens and paper claims, with a lower-time-preference stance that prioritizes principled resistance to unwanted protocol drift even when that triggers drama and short-term price risk.

Implications and Future Outlook

The debate over BIP-110 shows that formal consensus rules and informal governance norms are now tightly coupled, with Core’s policy decisions able to trigger broad legitimacy crises. If user-led forks remain credible but highly contentious tools, future disputes over spam, privacy features, or censorship-resistance could repeatedly test whether node operators, miners, and developers can coordinate without fragmenting the network. Policymakers and institutional users will need to recognize that Bitcoin’s upgrade path is less like a centralized software roadmap and more like a series of contested social bargains.

The discussion also signals that the long-term acceptability of on-chain data practices will shape not just fees and performance but legal and reputational risk. As ordinals-style activity, spam, and CSAM fears intersect with regulatory attention, the standards that nodes, wallet providers, and exchanges adopt could influence how courts and lawmakers interpret responsibility within the system. Whether BIP-110 passes or not, the pressure to reconcile Bitcoin’s “money only” ethos with evolving technical capabilities and external scrutiny will likely intensify over the next several years.

Some Key Information Gaps

1. How should governance processes handle controversial policy changes like OP_RETURN uncapping when a significant minority of users perceive them as a betrayal of Bitcoin’s monetary focus? Clarifying legitimate procedures and veto points is essential for maintaining trust in reference implementation maintainers and preventing recurring legitimacy crises.
2. What is the actual scope and probability of BIP-110 rendering edge-case multisig or time-locked UTXOs unspendable, and how many users might be affected? Quantitative estimates would allow stakeholders to weigh the real collateral damage of tighter rules against spam reduction benefits.
3. How many and what kinds of nodes—home users versus large economic nodes—are realistically needed to enforce a user-activated soft fork such as BIP-110? Concrete thresholds would help distinguish symbolic signaling from actual enforcement capacity in future user-driven governance efforts.
4. Under what conditions does a strictly principle-first approach actually produce better long-term outcomes than pragmatic, outcome-focused decisions in Bitcoin governance? A more explicit framework for evaluating principles versus short-term utility would make future protocol debates less ad hoc and personality-driven.
5. What standards of code review, testing, and rollback should apply to temporary consensus changes like BIP-110 to reduce operational risk? Agreed criteria for time-limited forks could lower the risk that experimental changes become recurring flashpoints or leave subtle bugs in critical infrastructure.

Broader Implications for Bitcoin

User-Driven Governance as a Persistent Constraint

The controversy around BIP-110 suggests that user-activated soft forks will remain a live option whenever large segments of the community believe Core has drifted from Bitcoin’s monetary mission. Over the next 3–5 years, this dynamic could harden expectations that node operators—not developers or miners—are the ultimate arbiters of acceptable change, even if only a small but resolute minority acts. As more institutional capital interacts with Bitcoin, understanding and respecting this constraint will be crucial for managing upgrade risk and avoiding governance surprises.

Data Embedding, Legal Risk, and Network Responsibility

Debates over OP_RETURN, Taproot inscriptions, and hypothetical CSAM scenarios highlight how seemingly technical choices about data limits may influence future legal interpretations of responsibility. If arbitrary data remains easy to store on-chain, regulators may push node operators, miners, or infrastructure providers toward more aggressive screening, potentially clashing with decentralization goals. Conversely, strong consensus around minimizing non-monetary data could strengthen arguments that Bitcoin primarily facilitates payments and savings, reshaping regulatory treatment over a multi-year horizon.

Culture, Meritocracy, and Developer Attraction

Concerns about “pleb slop” rhetoric and DEI-style politics in development circles show that cultural narratives can affect who chooses to contribute to Bitcoin’s codebase. Over time, if contributors perceive governance as captured by either technocratic elites or ideologically driven factions, some talent may drift toward alternative open-source monetary projects or adjacent domains. A culture that balances meritocracy with genuine openness to criticism will likely be more resilient and attractive to the next generation of protocol engineers, reviewers, and tool-builders.

Lessons from Taproot for Future Upgrades

The way Taproot’s dominant visible impact has become ordinals rather than privacy gains is treated as a warning about upgrade sociology as much as upgrade design. Future proposals that extend programmability or introduce new script paths may face heightened skepticism unless their primary use cases clearly reinforce Bitcoin’s monetary role. Over the next cycle, this could slow the pace of consensus changes but also reduce the risk that underexamined features become vectors for spam, confusion, or regulatory backlash.

Influencer Incentives and Public Signaling

The reputational hazards described in taking sides on BIP-110 suggest that visible sentiment in protocol debates may underrepresent privately held views. If influential educators and commentators increasingly stay silent to avoid losing audiences or conference slots, governance signals will skew toward more tribal or loud factions. Over several years, this dynamic could bias perceived consensus, making it harder for genuinely broad middle-ground positions to surface and for external observers to accurately gauge the direction of Bitcoin’s social layer.