Bitcoin's Power Struggle: Nodes Revolt Against Miner Hegemony

The Bitcoin network faces one of the most rare and striking consensus tests in years this weekend, as a small but determined group of nodes prepares to reject blocks produced by the vast majority of the network's miners, a move that has the potential to fundamentally shake the governance structure of the digital asset.

Polarization Between Miners and Node Operators

The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) known as BIP-110, which aims to temporarily restrict the network's capacity for non-payment data, is entering its long-planned mandatory signaling period. Technically, the proposal appears to be finished, as public signaling from mining pools remains negligible at under 3%, while the required 55% approval threshold is already out of reach.

■Public signaling from mining pools is below 3%.

■The mandatory signaling period begins on August 9.

■The estimated activation block is 965,664 (approximately 4 weeks later).

■Nodes enforcing the rules are switching to the Bitcoin Knots software.

The UASF Mechanism and the Irony of SegWit

Proponents of BIP-110 argue that Bitcoin's governance relies not on hash power but on users (nodes), aiming to deploy the User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) mechanism. This philosophy was proven during the activation of SegWit in 2017, demonstrating that rules could be changed despite miner resistance. However, in a great irony, SegWit's feature of segregating signature data enabled the very Ordinals and Runes protocols that BIP-110 now seeks to restrict.

Market and Liquidity Risks

If nodes enforcing BIP-110 reject the dominant chain on Sunday, a serious chain split risk could emerge for the network. In this scenario, although the BIP-110 chain would command a very small fraction of hash power, some exchanges and wallet providers have announced they may temporarily pause deposits and withdrawals as a precaution. Opposition from prominent figures like Michael Saylor and Adam Back further diminishes the likelihood of market adoption for the proposal.

BIP-110 is subjecting Bitcoin's most fundamental defense mechanism, the "economic majority," to a severe test. Looking at it from the code level, it is true that hash rate is not the sole determinant; however, the survival of a UASF without miner support is nearly impossible without a mass migration of exchanges and users. This situation appears to be a lower-resource and more fractured repeat of the 2017 SegWit war, forcing liquidity providers to maneuver carefully in the short term.