Bitcoin's BIP-110 episode is free-market capitalism in purest form

Crypto Daybook AmericasBitcoin's BIP-110 episode is free-market capitalism in purest formYour day-ahead look for Aug. 10, 2026By Omkar Godbole|Edited by Sheldon Reback2 hrs ago3 min readMake preferred on ShareShare this articleCopy linkX iconX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailMake preferred on SummaryShowThis is an excerpt from CoinDesk newsletter 'Daybook.' Sign up here, if you haven't already.Whether bitcoin BTC$64,467.54 works better as a store of value or a payments mechanism can be debated. But one of its core appeals, its radically free-market, permissionless design, is not. The BIP-110 saga put that design on full display.The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-110 started as a proposal to limit non-financial data such as Ordinals inscriptions, seen by some as spam, to free up blockchain space. The proposal was debated in an open forum by the developer community, failed to secure broad support and was effectively denied by distributed consensus. The key here is distributed consensus: No regulator or central committee banned it. The free-market story continues, though. Supporters also got to exercise their right to form their own blockchain, forked or split from the original Bitcoin. They did so at block 961,632 in an attempt to implement their preferred rules in the newer version in a voluntary move not forced by any regulator or middlemen.Miners quickly chose the more profitable version, the original Bitcoin. The new chain, which inherited Bitcoin’s massive mining difficulty, attracted only a tiny fraction of hashpower and produced just two blocks before grinding to a halt. Meanwhile, the original Bitcoin network continued uninterrupted, retaining virtually all activity, liquidity and security.“Bitcoin worked exactly as designed,” Michael Saylor, the founder of BTC-holding company Strategy (MSTR), said on X. Contrast that with the so-called free-market economies of the world. Falling corporate profitability should trigger cost-cutting and layoffs, but elector…

Bitcoin's BIP-110 episode is free-market capitalism in purest form

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