Bitcoin Magazine has published an analysis aimed at corporate Bitcoin users as BIP-110 moves toward its first major activation boundary. According to the article, the proposal enters mandatory signaling at block 961,632, currently projected around Aug. 9, 2026. It locks in no later than block 963,648, roughly in late August, and activates its new transaction rules at block 965,664, currently projected for early September.
BIP-110 uses a 55% signaling threshold and would enforce its restrictions for 52,416 blocks, or about one year.
What BIP-110 would change
The article says Bitcoin consensus changes are resolved through coordination among miners, users, and nodes, noting that any participant can fall into more than one of those groups. Miners choose which valid chain to extend. Users decide which chain’s coins, deposits, and payments they recognize. Nodes independently choose which rules they enforce. Durable consensus emerges when those groups converge on the same chain.
BIP-110 would restrict several transaction features, including large data pushes, oversized output scripts, undefined witness versions, Taproot annexes, deep Taproot control blocks, OP_SUCCESS opcodes, and certain Tapscript conditionals.
The proposal also grandfathers UTXOs created before activation. The article adds that standard monetary uses remain compatible with the new rules.
Why most corporations may not need to act
The analysis states that most corporations do not need to do anything. It says the typical corporate use of Bitcoin today is as a store of value and a long-duration treasury reserve asset, a use case that is basically untouched by the transaction features targeted by BIP-110.
For corporations that use Bitcoin for payments, the piece describes the direct impact as limited. Standard on-chain payments remain compatible, while ordinary Lightning payments take place off-chain. A chain split could still affect Lightning channel monitoring, force-close behavior, and the chain source that a Lightning node treats as authoritative. Even so, the article says many corporations that use Bitcoin for payments rely on a third-party provider such as Square, which leaves those issues abstracted away in practice.
Node operators have a direct decision to make
For corporations running their own full node, the article presents a more explicit choice. Every user, it says, retains the right to run the Bitcoin implementation that matches its own needs. A corporation that supports BIP-110 should switch over to running BIP-110, while other corporations running nodes can simply leave things as they are.
A BIP-110 node applies tighter rules. During mandatory signaling, it rejects blocks that fail to signal bit 4. After activation, it also rejects blocks containing transactions that violate BIP-110. By contrast, a non-BIP-110 node accepts both BIP-110-compliant blocks and blocks that remain valid under the current rules. Among all chains valid under its own rule set, a node follows the branch with the greatest accumulated proof of work.
That is why the article identifies a chain split as the central issue. If miners build a chain that does not comply with the proposal, BIP-110 nodes can separate from the broader network. Non-BIP-110 nodes may keep following the higher-work branch, while BIP-110 nodes could stay on a compliant branch with less accumulated work.
Where miners, exchanges, and custodians face risk
The piece says mining companies carry the highest immediate economic exposure. Electricity and machine time are sunk costs, so a miner should select the branch it expects other miners, nodes, and users to recognize, then mine on that branch. A miner may also stop mining and wait for the split to resolve.
If BIP-110 and non-BIP-110 chains develop independently, miners would need to track chainwork, signaling, validity under both rule sets, the position of their mining pool, and the market value assigned to each branch.
For exchanges and institutional custody operators, the article says preparation should focus on settlement uncertainty. In an extended split, the standard six-confirmation rule loses much of its value because each branch can independently show six confirmations. Operators should monitor both branches, raise confirmation requirements, pause large deposits or withdrawals when risk increases, and delay final settlement until one branch has clearly accumulated more work or a transaction has sufficient depth on all viable branches.
The article also says that different validation rules can produce chain splits, false confirmations, and double-spend risk.
How the article frames finality across branches
The piece uses a simple example. Assume a chain split occurs at block height S. A deposit appears on Chain A at S+4 and on Chain B at S+6. Once both chains reach S+12, the deposit has meaningful depth on each branch, assuming the operator is still using a six-confirmation benchmark.
Even then, the article says the six-confirmation number should change depending on the work on each branch, and the number of confirmations an operator wants to see may differ from one branch to another. The key point is that the operator must wait until both branches reach the required confirmation threshold. At that stage, the operator can be more confident the transaction will remain no matter which branch becomes canonical.
If a transaction appears on only one branch, the operator should wait for that branch to win or apply chain-specific accounting. The article says that is the only way to make sure no double spending occurs. In practice, it adds, monetary transactions should eventually appear on both branches because the BIP-110 chain does not prohibit monetary transactions.
Conclusion and disclaimer in the original article
The article’s bottom line is that the main thing corporations need to watch is a chain split. If no split happens, very little needs to be done differently. Even if a split does happen, the piece says BIP-110 would not create disruptions that cannot be managed.
Its practical guidance is straightforward: corporations that could be affected by a split should lengthen confirmation times and monitor both branches; node-running corporations that support the proposal should start running BIP-110 if they have not already; miners should direct hashpower based on their view of which branch will end up with the most accumulated proof of work; and exchanges and custodians should lengthen settlement procedures and maintain visibility into both chains if a split occurs.
The article closes by saying that for the day-to-day operations of most corporate Bitcoin users, BIP-110 changes very little, if anything at all.
A disclaimer attached to the original says the content was prepared on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations for informational purposes only, reflects the author’s own analysis and opinion, and should not be relied on as investment advice. It also says nothing in the article constitutes an offer, invitation, or solicitation to purchase, sell, or subscribe for any security or financial product. The post first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Allard Peng.