Bitcoin's BIP-110 entered its final ordinary 2,016-block window on July 25 with miner support at just 0.89%. To lock in via the ordinary path, it needs 1,109 blocks — 55% — before the window closes. If support stays below that threshold, the mandatory version-bit phase can begin in August, forcing a different timeline for the contentious proposal.
BIP-110's uphill climb
The numbers aren't great. With less than 1% of blocks signaling support, BIP-110 is far from the 55% threshold. The proposal, which would change Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment algorithm, has drawn opposition from developers like Jameson Lopp, who co-authored an alternative: BIP-361, a draft plan for post-quantum migration. Lopp frames Consensus Cleanup, covenants, and quantum preparation as Bitcoin's next agenda — and BIP-110 doesn't fit neatly into that list.
If the ordinary window fails, the version-bit phase kicks in. That's a slower, more adversarial process. The clock is ticking.
Consensus Cleanup: four fixes in one
While BIP-110 struggles, another proposal is quietly moving forward. BIP-54, known as Consensus Cleanup, bundles four protocol repairs: a fix for the timewarp attack, extreme block-validation cost limits, a Merkle-tree ambiguity involving 64-byte transactions, and future duplicate-transaction checks.
The timewarp flaw is the most dramatic. It allows majority hash power to drive mining difficulty toward its minimum within 38 days, pulling subsidy forward through faster block production. That's a potential economic attack. BIP-54 also caps signature operations per transaction, reducing worst-case validation burden by a factor of 40. Specially crafted blocks can take several minutes to validate on high-end hardware and hours on weaker machines — the cap fixes that.
Antoine Poinsot and Matt Corallo completed the BIP-54 specification in May. Bitcoin Inquisition has run the rules on its experimental signet since February. The 64-byte transaction form that BIP-54 invalidates? Miners have treated it as nonstandard since 2019, and it last appeared on-chain in 2016.
Covenants and the post-quantum horizon
On July 27, Bitcoin Inquisition activated BIP-446's OP_TEMPLATEHASH at signet block 314,928. That allows Tapscript to commit to the exact spending transaction, enabling covenant primitives for vaults. Current vault constructions use presigned transactions and destroyed signing keys — fragile across large balances and long storage periods.
But OP_TEMPLATEHASH alone isn't the endgame. BIP-448 proposes a three-opcode package (OP_TEMPLATEHASH, OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK, OP_INTERNALKEY) authored by Gregory Sanders, Antoine Poinsot, and Steven Roose. It enables rebindable transactions, simpler payment channels, multiparty Lightning designs, statechains, and Ark variants. The trade-off: activating standalone OP_TEMPLATEHASH has a smaller review surface and gets vault tooling out sooner, while BIP-448 offers broader payment-system support but a larger review scope and lower chance of another soft fork.
Lopp opposes BIP-110 and co-authored BIP-361, a draft plan for post-quantum migration. He's pushing for a different order of operations.
What's at stake
Prolonged delay in adopting Consensus Cleanup leaves four documented weaknesses in the protocol. The longer they sit, the higher the chance of an attack that compresses the review schedule — exactly the kind of emergency no one wants.
The next concrete milestone is August, when BIP-110's version-bit phase can begin if the ordinary window fails. Whether that forces a broader conversation about priorities — or just more debate — remains the open question.
