Bitcoin Network Mines First Block Supporting BIP-110, Sparking Debate Over On-Chain Data Restrictions

ChainCatcher report: According to market sources, the first block supporting BIP-110 has been mined by the Ocean mining pool. The proposal aims to temporarily impose a soft fork limiting arbitrary non-financial data in blockchain transactions over approximately one year. Supporters argue this would curb “junk” data consuming block space, preserve Bitcoin’s role as a robust monetary infrastructure, and reduce burdens on node operators. The proposal has sparked intense debate within the community. Critics, including Blockstream CEO Adam Back, warn that intervention at the consensus layer could undermine Bitcoin’s credibility, lead to discriminatory treatment of transactions, and violate the principle of transaction capacity neutrality. Back also questions the proposal’s actual level of support, suggesting it may increase the risk of blockchain fragmentation. The controversy has escalated further, with a developer embedding a 66KB image within a Bitcoin transaction to oppose BIP-110’s core premise and demonstrate that large amounts of data can be encoded without relying on OP_RETURN. This debate highlights a long-standing ideological divide within the Bitcoin community: whether to firmly defend Bitcoin’s pure identity as money, or to maintain maximum neutrality toward arbitrary uses of the base layer.