Less Than 2 Weeks Left — Bitcoin’s BIP-110 Clock Starts Ticking as Miner Support Creeps Higher Before Showdown

Bitcoin’s mandatory signaling window for the proposed BIP-110 soft fork opens in less than two weeks, and the story has changed more than the headline number suggests. Miner support remains modest at roughly 2.64%, but several weeks ago, signaling struggled to stay above 1%. Since then, it has climbed gradually as the deadline has come into view. The increase shows the proposal has gained some traction, yet not enough to indicate that the largest mining pools are preparing to switch.

If activated, the restrictions begin at block 965664 and expire automatically after 52,416 blocks, or roughly one year.

The signaling charts have looked different over the past month than they do at first glance.

Meanwhile, Foundry, Antpool, ViaBTC, and F2pool, the four pools responsible for most of the network’s hashrate, have shown little movement. Until one of those operators changes course, gradual increases from smaller participants are unlikely to materially change the activation picture.

Among the major mining pools, Foundry has taken an interesting approach.

Around July 17, 2026, the company asked customers to vote on whether the pool should begin signaling for BIP-110. Rather than making the decision internally, Foundry tied the outcome directly to its clients’ hashrate, according to an email sent to pool participants.

Voting power is based on each customer’s average hashrate. Clients who do not respond are automatically counted as “No,” and Foundry’s default position remains to signal against the proposal. Only if “Yes” votes exceed 51% of participating weighted hashrate will the pool switch all of its blocks to signaling support.

That decision matters because Foundry represents between roughly 23% and 33% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate, depending on the measurement period. If a pool of that size flipped overnight, the signaling charts would change immediately.

As of today, there has been no indication that such a shift has occurred.

The mechanics become much more consequential once block 961632 arrives.

If current signaling levels persist, nodes enforcing BIP-110 will reject blocks mined by most of the network because they lack the required version bit. Those nodes will instead follow the relatively small number of signaling blocks.

That potential outcome explains why much of the debate has shifted away from inscriptions and toward the activation process itself.

BIP-110 follows a deployment path that differs from Bitcoin’s two most recent major soft forks.

The proposal launched on Dec. 1, 2025, using a modified BIP-9 process. It required 1,109 of 2,016 blocks, or 55%, signaling during a single difficulty period to lock in early. If that threshold was never reached, the proposal advances toward a forced lock-in at block 963,648 before activating one difficulty period later at block 965,664.

Between those milestones sits the mandatory signaling window.

From block 961,632 through 963,647, nodes enforcing BIP-110 reject every block that does not signal version bit 4, regardless of how much proof-of-work supports it. That approach differs from both Segwit and Taproot, where non-upgraded nodes continued accepting the strongest proof-of-work chain throughout activation.

Whether BIP-110 follows the same path depends largely on whether one or more major pools change position before Aug. 9.

BIP-110 was authored under the name Dathon Ohm. Earlier versions circulated under the BIP-444 designation before being accepted into the BIPs repository.

BIP-110 Supporters argue that inscriptions, BRC-20-style tokens, and increasingly large OP_RETURN payloads raise the cost of operating a full node, distort Bitcoin’s fee market, and shift network resources away from Bitcoin’s intended purpose as a payment and settlement system.

Dashjr added:

“And unlike softforks, hardforks need consensus to succeed. There is no consensus on rejecting BIP110.”

Opponents generally agree that spam exists but disagree over whether BIP-110’s activation mechanism is the appropriate solution. “OP_RETURN blockspace usage hasn’t increased much since Bitcoin Core v30 was released. Oversized OP_RETURNs may be up slightly, but still they consume less than 0.1% of blockspace,” Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital’s head of research, wrote on X.

Thorn continued:

“BIP-110 is an extremely disruptive & dangerous response given the tiny impact from these prunable [transactions].”

The next two weeks will likely come down to three developments.

The first is whether one of the largest mining pools begins signaling support. The second is whether major exchanges publicly clarify which chain they would recognize if competing chains emerge after block 961,632. The third is what miners actually do once the mandatory window opens, because signaling percentages leading up to the deadline only tell part of the story.

The trend has been moving in BIP-110’s favor, climbing from below 1% to roughly 3% as the deadline approaches. Even so, the proposal remains far from demonstrating broad miner backing. Unless one of Bitcoin’s largest pools changes course in the days ahead, the mandatory signaling window appears set to open with support still concentrated among a relatively small portion of the network.