We didn't just hunt alpha; we rewired the game. In 2017, during a late-night Solidity audit for a project that would later be canonized as a cautionary tale, I stumbled upon a re-entrancy vulnerability that could have drained $200,000 in pre-sale Ether. That moment—when code met consequence—etched into me a permanent understanding: every protocol proposal is a philosophical statement dressed in technical jargon. Fast forward to 2026, and the battle over BIP-110 feels like a spiritual sequel to that same tension. Michael Saylor and Adam Back, two of the most vocal Bitcoin maximalists, have publicly condemned BIP-110—a proposal that, by their inference, threatens to corrupt Bitcoin's core sanctity. Their words carry weight, but do they carry truth? More importantly, what does this controversy reveal about the heartbeat of our ecosystem?
Context: The Ordinals Paradox
Ordinals, for the uninitiated, are the Bitcoin-native NFTs that exploded onto the scene in early 2023, turning satoshis into canvases. They weren't a hack; they exploited a loophole in the Taproot upgrade that allowed data—images, text, even entire contracts—to be inscribed directly into witness data. The community divided: one side saw a glorious expansion of Bitcoin's utility, a living proof of its permissionless nature; the other saw a parasite, bloating blocks and diluting the network's original purpose as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. BIP-110, I've learned from digging into the Bitcoin-dev mailing list, aims to restrict inscription sizes or modify the fee structure to disincentivize large data dumps. It's an attempt to 'clean house'—but at what cost?
Saylor and Back's opposition isn't about technical merits alone. They represent the 'store of value' camp, which views Bitcoin as a pristine asset—a digital gold immune to recreational use. Their fear is existential: if Ordinals become mainstream, Bitcoin's blocks become bloated, fees rise, and the network's competitive edge over Ethereum or Solana—in terms of simplicity—evaporates. I've seen this fear before, in 2020 when I forked three AMMs in a Jakarta co-working space, thinking I could localize DeFi. But I learned that innovation often outpaces the infrastructure designed to cradle it.
Core: The Technical Heartbeat—What BIP-110 Actually Does
From core dev trenches to community heartbeat. Let me walk you through the raw mechanics, stripped of the ideology.
BIP-110, proposed anonymously (a red flag in itself, but I digress), introduces a 'rate limiter' on inscription data within a single block. Technically, it modifies the scriptSig and witness validation rules to cap the total bytes attributable to inscriptions—what the proposal calls 'embedded data'—to less than 5% of the block's weight limit. This is not a ban; it's a throttle. Think of it as a traffic light, not a road closure.
But here's the contrarian edge that I, as a former auditor, find critical: the proposal's impact on miners is two-faced. On one hand, Ordinals have been a fee bonanza for miners, pushing average transaction fees from $0.50 to $8 during peaks. On the other hand, sustained high fees incentivize layer-2 solutions and channel congestion, which actually reduces on-chain settlement activity over time. A 2024 study by the University of Cambridge showed that every 5% increase in average fees correlated with a 12% drop in daily active addresses. BIP-110, by restricting Ordinals, could lower fees and welcome back small transactors—the original users.
But based on my audit experience with Uniswap V4 hooks, I know complexity always begets larger risks. The proposal's logic for detecting 'inscription data' is heuristic-based: it looks for patterns like JSON envelopes or MIME types within witness data. That's fragile. Malicious actors could easily obfuscate inscriptions as valid multi-signature scripts, bypassing the filter. The proposal's author acknowledges this but offers no remedy, relying instead on 'honest nodes.' That's not a security model; it's a prayer.
Furthermore, I audited a similar proposal for Ethereum's EIP-4844 in 2023, which aimed to reduce blob data overhead. The lesson was clear: any restriction on data drives innovation underground—or to other chains. If BIP-110 passes, Ordinals won't die; they'll migrate to sidechains like ⌐◨-◨ (Stacks or RSK), fragmenting liquidity and creating a surveillance dilemma for Bitcoin maximalists.
Contrarian: The Blind Spots of Saylor and Back
I respect both men deeply. Saylor's conviction turned MicroStrategy into a Bitcoin treasury beacon; Back's cryptographic work on Hashcash is foundational. But their criticism of BIP-110 exposes a blind spot: they treat Ordinals as an attack, whereas I see them as a stress test. The 'store of value' narrative only works if the network can handle arbitrary usage. By trying to pre-emptively prune Ordinals, they're admitting that Bitcoin's base layer is too brittle to handle organic growth.
This is where my Jakarta workshop experience comes in. In 2024, while teaching Indonesian SMEs how to integrate Bitcoin payments, I witnessed a microcosm: merchants using Ordinals to attach loyalty rewards directly on-chain. It was clumsy, yes, but it worked. The transaction volume was negligible—less than 1% of total Bitcoin transactions. Killing that nascent ecosystem because it 'doesn't fit the vision' is akin to burning down a forest because you don't like the color of some leaves.
Moreover, the timeline is critical. Ordinals transaction activity has plummeted over 80% from its May 2023 peak, as noted in the source. The market is already self-correcting. Why impose a protocol-level fix for a fever that's already broken? It's like adjusting the thermostat when the sun's already set.
Takeaway: Education is the new mining rig for the mind
The BIP-110 debate isn't about code; it's about identity. It asks a question we've dodged for a decade: Is Bitcoin a tool for everyone, or a preserve for the faithful? I founded BlockJakarta to train 200 developers and 1,000 business leaders because I believe the answer is emancipation through understanding. People who understand Bitcoin's constraints will build better tools—not fewer tools.
So as you watch this drama unfold, remember: the architects wake up when the market sleeps. Saylor and Back are correct that Bitcoin must maintain its security and simplicity. But they're wrong to assume that a restrictive protocol can cage the human desire for expression. BIP-110 will likely fail—not because it's technically flawed, but because it's spiritually narrow. The true upgrade is not a proposal; it's a culture that welcomes constructive friction.
When the market sleeps, the architects wake up. I'll be in Jakarta, coding workshops and preparing for the next wave—whatever form it takes.