Bitcoin's biggest advocate, Michael Saylor, says new plan to clean up the blockchain is 'a bad idea'

A $60B Vote of Confidence

Michael Saylor, executive chairman and co-founder of Strategy, has come out swinging against a new proposal to clean up Bitcoin’s ‘spam,’ arguing that it could fundamentally alter how the world’s largest blockchain operates. The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 110, aimed at temporarily restricting arbitrary data to focus on the core monetary functions, is a threat to the main principles of the network, Saylor explained in a comprehensive critique published on X, titled “110 reasons BIP-110 is a bad idea.”

"The proposed cure is more dangerous than the condition," Saylor said in the recent detailed analysis. "BIP 110 would use consensus to narrow valid activity, constrain future options, complicate deployment, and establish a precedent it cannot later erase." Saylor’s primary objection is based on the "no-questions-asked" nature of money. "Bitcoin cannot read intent," Saylor writes. "The network cannot know whether bytes represent an image, a proof, a contract, metadata, an authentication record, or a future application," argued.

By banning "spam," the protocol would effectively elevate human judgment into protocol law, effectively turning Bitcoin’s conservatism upside down. ‘Too aggressive’ Saylor is the latest bitcoin executive to weigh in on this highly debated topic among the Bitcoin community. The proposal aims to implement a one-year temporary soft fork that would add seven distinct consensus restrictions, including capping data payload sizes and rejecting certain script executions. The goal is to keep the Bitcoin blockchain focused strictly on "sound money" rather than general-purpose data storage. Its supporters think of the proposal as an attempt to restore Bitcoin's original purpose as peer-to-peer digital cash. But critics say it represents an attempt to restrict or censor certain uses of Bitcoin.

One of the most debated parts of BIP 110 is that it changes how upgrades get approved. Instead of needing 95% of miners to agree (the usual rule), it suggests lowering that requirement to just 55%. Saylor, whose firm holds 843,775 BTC, worth $54.31 billion as of Sunday, and is the world’s largest publicly listed bitcoin treasury firm, calls this mechanism "too aggressive," warning that it could lead to a network split and widespread market uncertainty. In simple terms, lowering the approval threshold could encourage more disagreement, increasing the chances of the network splitting into competing versions.

For institutional investors, BTC’s appeal lies in the network’s stable, permissionless environment. The same appeal may be dented if the new proposal gets implemented, Saylor argues. BIP 110 could create a "chilling effect" on developers and innovation, he explained, adding that if today’s target is data storage, tomorrow’s target could be privacy tools, novel custody solutions, or corporate applications. Furthermore, Saylor warns of the economic blowback. By suppressing certain uses of the network, aggregate fee demand could fall. In a world where the block subsidy continues to halve, lower fee revenue could weaken miners’ incentive to commit hash power, ultimately compromising Bitcoin’s security.

Guardians of neutrality Rather than changing the underlying code, Saylor suggests that better tools already exist to manage the network’s capacity. He notes that market-based fees and individual relay policies are the appropriate places to address "spam" without altering the sacred consensus rules. In simple terms, Saylor is arguing that if someone doesn’t like spam, they should configure their own note so it doesn’t pass it along (relay policy), or let spam users be priced out by higher costs (market fees), rather than modifying the fundamental blockchain rules for everyone.

Saylor concludes with a plea for the community to remain focused on the long-term vision of an open, permissionless financial system. "Bitcoin does not need guardians of purity," he asserts. "It needs guardians of neutrality."