A fresh debate has emerged within the Bitcoin community after Blockstream CEO Adam Back publicly criticized the proposed BIP-110 “Ordinals filter” fix, arguing that the plan could damage Bitcoin’s core design and user functionality. The discussion shows growing disagreements over how the network should handle increasing data inscriptions, often referred to as “spam,” created through Ordinals transactions.
A fresh debate has emerged within the Bitcoin community after Blockstream CEO Adam Back publicly criticized the proposed BIP-110 “Ordinals filter” fix, arguing that the plan could damage Bitcoin’s core design and user functionality. The discussion shows growing disagreements over how the network should handle increasing data inscriptions, often referred to as “spam,” created through Ordinals transactions.
Supporters of BIP-110 believe filtering certain types of non-financial data transactions could reduce blockchain congestion and limit controversial content being embedded into blocks. They argue that filtering is not censorship but a technical measure aimed at preserving Bitcoin’s primary role as a monetary network rather than a general-purpose data storage system.
Critics, including Adam Back, strongly disagree. Back stated that attempts to force filtering changes without broad network consensus could undermine Bitcoin governance, potentially leading to rushed upgrades, temporary forks, and disruptions to existing features. He also argued that completely preventing unwanted data from entering the blockchain is practically impossible because Bitcoin was designed to be permissionless and censorship-resistant.
“Permissionless censorship-resistant, decentralized systems are hard to censor. by design. bip110 doesn’t change that, it reckless and breaks multiple things for regular users,” Back .
Back warned that aggressive filtering rules could unintentionally break currently used tools and upcoming innovations built on Bitcoin scripting technologies. According to his view, proposals that attempt to quickly modify network rules risk harming regular users more than solving the spam problem. However, some proponents describe BIP-110 as only an early step that can be adjusted over time if needed.
Back specifically criticized proposals that could allow certain protocol changes to activate with roughly 55% miner or network support, arguing that upgrades historically rely on overwhelming consensus rather than slim majorities. According to him, lowering the activation threshold could set a precedent where controversial changes are pushed through without broad agreement, potentially creating long-term governance risks for the network.
He described the idea of forcing upgrades through accelerated timelines, “flag-day” activation methods, or temporary soft-fork approaches as alarming, warning that such actions could disrupt existing functionality and even risk unintended consequences for users.
For now, no consensus has been reached on BIP-110, and the discussion continues among developers, miners, and node operators.
