Michael Saylor warns that BIP-110 is the biggest threat to Bitcoin; the four-year cycle is dead, and institutional capital is the real protagonist.

In his recent remarks, Taylor raised two points that have caught the market's attention: first, Bitcoin's four-year cycle is "dead"; second, "bad idea-driven protocol changes" are the single biggest risk currently facing Bitcoin. The former is a verdict on the old narrative, while the latter is a direct reference to the controversy surrounding BIP-110.

He also described how Bitcoin's current price momentum has shifted from retail speculation to institutional capital inflows, with bank lending and digital credit shaping the future growth curve.

What is BIP-110, and why is it being discussed now?

BIP-110 was proposed by developer Dathon Ohm in late 2025, with support from the Bitcoin Knots team. At its core, this proposal aims to restrict non-monetary data in Bitcoin transactions through a temporary one-year soft fork: directly targeting Ordinals inscriptions, BRC-20 tokens, and large OP_RETURN data, which critics argue clogs the blockchain and burdens nodes.

Supporters have a clear stance: Bitcoin is a sound currency in nature, and the competition for resources between arbitrary data and payments drives up transaction fees for ordinary users, which must be curbed at the protocol level.

In March 2026, Ocean Pool mined the first BIP-110 signal block, officially launching the miner voting process. Currently, approximately 7.47% of nodes support this proposal, still some distance from the launch threshold.

The core of the controversy: the 55% threshold and the legitimacy of the consensus.

The most controversial design of BIP-110 is that it sets the threshold for activation at 55% of the computing power, far lower than the traditional 95% consensus standard for Bitcoin upgrades. Critics argue that this threshold itself undermines Bitcoin's governance practices.

Blockstream CEO Adam Back used strong language, calling BIP-110 a literal downgrade and a Trojan horse, warning that intervention at the consensus level would damage Bitcoin's credibility as a store of value and could set a precedent for future transaction censorship.

Bitcoin 2026 Conference: An Olive Branch or a PR Maneuver?

David Bailey, founder of BTC Inc. and organizer of the Bitcoin 2026 conference, recently admitted that he had mocked BIP-110 supporters online and invited both sides to the conference for a dialogue. However, many BIP-110 supporters directly refused, believing that this was merely a public relations move linked to ticket sales, rather than genuine bridge-building.

The signaling process for BIP-110 is still underway, with a potential launch decision node expected later this year. The underlying question in this debate is singular: should Bitcoin be a minimalist monetary tool, or should it allow for broader on-chain experimentation? The answer may well determine who defines Bitcoin's next decade.