BIP 110: update status to closed

[Jon Atack]

Hello list,

I'd like to propose marking BIP 110 Reduced Data Temporary Softfork as closed, following the chain split yesterday during its mandatory signaling period, when its chain began rejecting as invalid all blocks that did not signal bit 4 and mining and block production stalled on the BIP 110 chain.

Per BIP 3, a BIP may evolve from Deployed to Closed when it is no longer in active use. Any community member may initiate this status update by announcing it to the mailing list, and proceed if no objections have been raised for four weeks. BIPs are not deleted; they are retained for historical/educational interest after being updated to Closed.

Regards,
Jon

[Greg Tonoski]

Objection. The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110 Reduced Data Temporary Softfork) has been activated. There are two blocks with the bit 4 signal (block height 961633) and the estimated 18 000 fully validating nodes in the network. I keep running such a node and accepting payments even if time interval between blocks is temporarily longer until the next difficulty adjustment.

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[Anthony Towns]

On Sun, Aug 09, 2026 at 08:36:28PM +0200, Greg Tonoski wrote:
> Objection. The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110 Reduced Data
> Temporary Softfork) has been activated. There are two blocks with the bit 4
> signal (block height 961633) and the estimated 18 000 fully validating
> nodes in the network. I keep running such a node and accepting payments
> even if time interval between blocks is temporarily longer until the next
> difficulty adjustment.

This objection seems straightforward to resolve: BIP 3 requires a 4 week
period before moving a BIP to "closed", and if there is fewer than one
block found per 4 week period, you can expect it will take about 150
years for the difficulty retarget point to be reached.

So I'd suggest don't mark the BIP closed until there's been 18-28 days
(100-150 years to the retarget) since the last BIP110 compliant block
was found.

Cheers,
aj

[Greg Tonoski]

I disagree. What do you propose as a justification for the 4 weeks and not another duration? Moreover, there are valid transactions, valid new UTXOs and the valid blocks. Would you suggest that they are subject to confiscation?

I look forward to a reply.

[Murch]

Hello Greg,

BIP 110 failed to achieve adoption in both phases of its deployment
attempt. It got just shy of 2.5% of blocks signaling readiness in the
latest signaling period, and since RDTS nodes mandated signaling, RDTS
nodes relegated themselves to a chain that only found two blocks, while
the Bitcoin blockchain grew by 134 blocks. The sole block author on the
RDTS chaintip has since announced that they have ceased mining on the
stalled chaintip.

While it’s your choice to remain on the stalled chaintip or to throw-in
with the hard fork that is now being discussed, it’s clear that the
Bitcoin network rejected the soft fork. The minority hashrate chaintip
therefore constitutes a forkcoin. Altcoins are not on-topic for the BIPs
repository, and therefore, BIP110 should be advanced from Deployed to
Closed as it is obsolete.

Murch

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[Greg Tonoski]

The BIP-110 was activated at the block height as you (Mark Erhardt) approved in the specification. There wasn't any other "adoption" criteria (especially "2.5%").

As the Bitcoin Whitepaper says: "As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers. (...) Each node works on finding a difficult proof-of-work for its block". The chain is mined by many more nodes than the single one "Roughnecks" that you mentioned below. Roughnecks' decision does not represent the other nodes. Roughnecks node is free to leave at will as specified in the Bitcoin Whitepaper: "Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will (...)". Again, there are estimated 18 000 fully validating nodes in the Bitcoin network and they don't reject the BIP-110 soft-fork (a.k.a. RDTS). I am running of the nodes and has just broadcast a transaction. It's not an altcoin transaction. The bitcoins should not be confiscated. Therefore, I think that my objection is justified.

I look forward to a reply.

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[Sjors Provoost]

Hi Greg,

Closing a BIP does not confiscate coins. The only way to achieve that would a new BIP enforcing a confiscatory soft fork on top of the BIP 110 forked chain. Or a checkpoint on the winning chain. Nobody is advocating for either.

Closing a BIP also doesn't ban anyone from running a node or continuing to mine. But the odds of catching up are slim.

I'm not in a rush to close it, but what would be your own criteria for when it's reasonable to do so?

I could spin up a BIP 12 (OP_EVAL) node tomorrow, reject P2SH by forking off at its activation height, and probably mine a whole bunch of blocks trivially. Modern Bitcoin Core wouldn't reject those blocks, because checkpoints have been removed. But I would never catch up with the tip. Nobody would seriously considering reopening BIP12 in such a scenario, even if I ran a million nodes.

For BIP110, it was obvious to me years ago [1] that this was never going to work, not as a policy rule, and not as a consensus rule. For others it look longer realize this, and some people never will. Hard to put an exact number on when to close it, though now would be fine.

- Sjors

[0]  https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0012.mediawiki

[1] see e.g. https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/@nado/episodes/episode-98-return-of-the-op-return and my comments on 

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[Saint Wenhao]

> I could spin up a BIP 12 (OP_EVAL) node tomorrow, reject P2SH by forking off at its activation height, and probably mine a whole bunch of blocks trivially.

Well, in the past, there was an altcoin, which supported OP_EVAL: it was called CoiledCoin. Back then, Luke had its own mining pool, and used that power, to basically make their chain unusable, by mining empty blocks, only with the coinbase transactions, which raised their difficulty to insane levels, where the community could no longer mine it, when he stopped.

And then, he wrote: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56675.msg676981#msg676981

> CoiledCoin now closed. Have a nice day.

Now, people can simply say, that after all of these years, he simply got, what he deserved: "LukeCoin now closed. Have a nice day."

Of course, any user can use any coin: CoiledCoin, BIP-110 coin, non-BIP-110 coin, or whatever. But if some chain is dead, and nobody pushes it forward, then I guess BIP can be closed: if someone wants to use a closed BIP, then it is just a choice of a given user.

> Closing a BIP does not confiscate coins.

I guess some people think, that if a BIP is there, then it is somehow supported, or accepted by the community. Which is simply not the case, because we have BIPs for block size increases, which are used only by some altcoins.

Probably it is a similar case, as it is with testnets being traded: some people believe, that if a given testnet is included into Bitcoin Core, then it is more valuable, just because it is included. Which is also why people are patiently waiting for testnet5 to be included, to trade it instantly, even though anyone could simply launch a similar test network, and use it.

Basically, including or excluding things into BIPs, or Bitcoin Core became more political, than it should be. Users can use whatever they want, but now, some people simply consider Bitcoin Core as a "brand", and a mere inclusion of something to be worthy.

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