Adam Back Opposes BIP-110 Ordinals Fix

Blockstream CEO Adam Back has opposed a proposal aimed at reducing Ordinals-like “spam” on Bitcoin, warning that the fix could do more harm than good to the network’s credibility.

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP-110) was proposed by pseudonymous Bitcoin developer Dathon Ohm in December. Nearly 7.5% of Bitcoin nodes — all of which are Bitcoin Knots clients — have signaled readiness for BIP-110, according to data.

The proposal seeks to temporarily shrink how much data can be stored in Bitcoin transactions to reduce the amount of images, videos, audios and other “data abuse” flooding the network.

While Back agreed that Bitcoin should act as “sound money,” he said in a post to X on Sunday that it wasn’t worth a consensus-level change, adding that BIP-110 would be “an attack” on Bitcoin’s credibility as a store of value and secure monetary network. 

“It’s a lynch mob attempt to push changes there is not consensus for,” he said, adding that spam is “just an annoyance” that poses no real security threat to the network.

BIP-110 is only a temporary fix to reduce arbitrary data, aimed at giving the Bitcoin community the ability to evaluate the impact for 12 months while developers work on a longer-term solution.

BIP-110 has gained more support from validators running Bitcoin Knots, which started taking market share from Bitcoin Core in the back half of 2025, when Bitcoin Core developers removed the 80-byte limit on the OP_RETURN function in late October, enabling more non-financial transactions to flood the Bitcoin network.

Bitcoin Core’s market share of Bitcoin nodes has fallen from about 98% to 77.2% since the controversial OP_RETURN function sparked debate in the Bitcoin community over what transactions should be allowed on the network, with Bitcoin Knots’ share rising to 22.7%.

Back is among many who opposed removing the 80-byte limit on the OP_RETURN function, stating in September that Ordinals-like spam has “no place in the timechain.”