Sometime around Sunday, August 9, at block height 961,632, Bitcoin will begin one of the strangest votes in its history. For roughly two weeks, every block a miner produces will either signal support for BIP-110 — a one-year restriction on the arbitrary data behind Ordinals and inscriptions — or it will not, and a small minority of nodes have pledged to reject the blocks that stay silent. If you hold Bitcoin and that paragraph reads like a foreign language, this guide is for you. It is the seventeenth entry in our literacy series and the first on network governance: like our guides to the difficulty adjustment and oil prices, it aims to leave you able to read the number yourself — in this case, a signaling percentage you will see quoted everywhere for the next month.
First principles: what a soft fork actually is
Bitcoin’s rules are enforced by the software that nodes run, and changing them comes in two flavors. A hard fork loosens the rules — blocks that were invalid become valid — and splits the network unless literally everyone upgrades. A soft fork tightens them: blocks that were valid become invalid, and old nodes still accept the new, stricter blocks. Soft forks are backward-compatible, which is why every major Bitcoin upgrade of the past decade — SegWit in 2017, Taproot in 2021 — took this shape. BIP-110 is a proposed soft fork: for a one-year trial, transactions could carry far less arbitrary data, targeting the inscription and Ordinals traffic its supporters call spam and its opponents call a use case, per the technical summaries at Simple Mining and AMINA Bank Research.
How signaling works — and what the percentage means
Miners cannot quietly impose a soft fork; nodes have to enforce it. Signaling is the coordination bridge. Each block contains a version field where a miner can set a bit that says, in effect, “I am ready to enforce these new rules.” Trackers count signaling blocks over a rolling window and publish the result as a percentage of hashrate — the number you see on dashboards like BGeometrics. Signaling is not a poll of opinion: it is a costless flag, which means it can overstate commitment (signaling is cheap) and understate late support (miners often wait). The 2021 Taproot activation showed the pattern: support looked uncertain for weeks, then cascaded to 98% once the largest pools moved together. The percentages that matter are thresholds written into the activation code — and this is where BIP-110 departs from every precedent.
BIP-110’s unusual design: a 55% threshold and a mandatory window
| Parameter | BIP-110 | Taproot (2021, for comparison) |
|---|---|---|
| Signaling threshold | 55% of blocks in the window | 90% within a difficulty epoch |
| Window | Mandatory: blocks 961,632 → 963,647 (~Aug 9–23) | Repeating epochs over ~3 months |
| If threshold met | Activation ~block 965,664 (~early September) | Locked in, activated Nov 2021 |
| If not met | Proposal fails; enforcing nodes may still reject non-signaling blocks during the window | Fresh attempt required |
| Current support | ~2.64% two weeks before the window; ~5 EH/s of signaling blocks, effectively all from Ocean | >90% at lock-in |
Three things stand out. First, the 55% threshold is radically low — most soft forks demand 90–95% precisely so that activation cannot split the chain against a large mining minority. Second, the window is mandatory: it opens at a block height, not by pool consensus, which forces the question whether anyone is ready or not. Third, actual support is minuscule: signaling sat below 1% through mid-July and reached only about 2% by July 30 — roughly 2.64% in the latest count, per KuCoin and Bitcoin.com News. The pool map explains it: F2Pool has refused outright, AntPool has stayed silent, Foundry USA punted to a hashrate-weighted vote of its miners, and Ocean — the pool founded explicitly around spam filtering — produces effectively all signaling blocks, per Pickaxe.
The chain-split question, sized honestly
The scare scenario in every BIP-110 headline is a chain split: nodes enforcing the new rules reject non-signaling blocks, follow a minority chain, and Bitcoin briefly has two histories. The precedent everyone reaches for is the 2017 “user-activated soft fork” standoff that ended with SegWit activating and the big-block faction departing to Bitcoin Cash. But scale matters: 2017’s confrontation involved major exchanges, double-digit hashrate and months of brinkmanship. BIP-110’s enforcing constituency today is a low-single-digit slice of hashrate and an unknown but small set of nodes. If that does not change inside the window, the overwhelmingly likely outcome is the boring one: the threshold is missed, the proposal lapses, and any rejected minority chain dies within blocks as its miners bleed revenue. The tail risk worth respecting is not a persistent split but turbulence — a burst of orphaned blocks, slower confirmations, and exchanges briefly pausing deposits out of caution. Watch what pools do as the window opens, not what social media says: hashrate follows revenue, and revenue follows the majority chain.
How to read the window as it happens: a 15-minute routine
- Find the live signaling share on a tracker such as BGeometrics’ BIP-110 dashboard. Note the trend, not the level: 3% flat is a non-event; 3% → 15% in a week means large pools are moving.
- Check the pool breakdown. One pool signaling is ideology; three pools signaling is coordination. Foundry’s miner-vote result, whenever it lands, is the single most informative datapoint of the window.
- Watch orphan/stale block reports once the window opens. A cluster of rejected blocks is the earliest sign that enforcing nodes have real weight behind them.
- Ignore price-impact predictions in either direction. Through the entire 2025–26 BIP-110 debate, signaling headlines have produced no measurable BTC price response; governance stories move the tape only when settlement actually breaks.
- Re-check after block 963,647. The window closes as mechanically as it opened. A miss is a result, not a postponement — supporters would need a new activation attempt from scratch.
Five rules for holders
Rule 1: You do not need to do anything. Holders’ coins are identical under both rule sets; a data-limit soft fork does not touch balances or signatures. Rule 2: Self-custody users should avoid time-sensitive transactions during the window if turbulence appears — not because funds are at risk, but because confirmation times could wobble. Rule 3: Distrust anyone selling certainty. A 55%-threshold mandatory window is genuinely novel; every confident prediction about it is extrapolation. Rule 4: Distinguish the proposal from the precedent. Even a failed BIP-110 sets one: mandatory windows with low thresholds are now in Bitcoin’s governance toolkit, and the next attempt — on data limits, or something you care about more — will cite it. Rule 5: The absence of drama is data. If the window opens at ~3% and closes at ~3%, that is Bitcoin’s conservatism working as designed — the strongest evidence this year that consensus rules are hard to change, which is, after all, much of the asset’s pitch.
Worked example: this window, this week
Our own marker M3, set in today’s analysis, applies the method: it asks simply whether signaling stands below 10% of hashrate when the window opens at block 961,632. The base rate says yes with room to spare — support would need to quadruple in a week. If it fires, the story of August 9–23 will be a quiet demonstration that 2.6% of miners cannot move Bitcoin, whatever the activation parameters say. If it fails — if signaling crosses 10% before the window even opens — then something changed inside Foundry’s vote or AntPool’s silence, and the split-risk conversation deserves more respect than this guide has given it. Either way, you now know exactly which number to check, where it lives, and what it can and cannot tell you.
FAQ
Will BIP-110 activate?
On current evidence it is very unlikely: signaling is roughly 2.6% against a 55% threshold, and no major pool has committed. But the mandatory window (~Aug 9–23) proceeds regardless, so the question resolves mechanically within weeks.
Could my bitcoin be affected by a chain split?
Coins cannot be lost to a soft-fork dispute; at worst, a brief split would mean duplicated histories until one chain dies. Practical risk for holders is limited to confirmation delays and temporary exchange caution during the window.
What does BIP-110 actually restrict?
Arbitrary, non-financial data embedded in transactions — the raw material of Ordinals inscriptions and similar schemes — for a one-year trial period. Ordinary payments and multisig are untouched.
Why is the 55% threshold controversial?
Traditional soft forks require 90–95% signaling so that activation cannot happen against a large mining minority. A 55% bar means up to 45% of hashrate could oppose an activating rule change — exactly the split-prone situation high thresholds exist to prevent.
Where do I track it day to day?
BGeometrics maintains a live BIP-110 signaling dashboard; block heights can be checked against any explorer. The window runs from block 961,632 to 963,647, with activation, if reached, near block 965,664 in early September.
Investment disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are volatile assets; you can lose some or all of your capital. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.