Hook: The Signal in the Chaos
The debate over BIP-110 isn't about code. It's about the soul of Bitcoin.
Last week, two of the network's most revered voices—Michael Saylor, the corporate oracle, and Adam Back, the cypherpunk architect—publicly condemned the Ordinals proposal. Their words were sharp, precise, and final. The market responded with a shrug, but the data told a quieter story: Ordinals trading activity had already collapsed by more than 60% from its peak. The controversy, then, was not a catalyst but a eulogy.
Yet beneath the surface of this seemingly technical dispute lies a deeper fracture—one that threatens to calcify Bitcoin into a monument rather than a living system. As a founder who has spent years teaching the philosophy behind the protocol, I've watched this battle with a mix of fascination and dread. The real question is not whether Ordinals survive, but whether Bitcoin can still evolve when its most influential guardians would rather freeze the frame.
Context: The Cathedral and the Graffiti
To understand the conflict, we must first understand the canvas. Ordinals, for the uninitiated, are Bitcoin’s answer to NFTs—a way to inscribe arbitrary data onto individual satoshis, turning them into unique digital artifacts. It was a innovation born from the Taproot upgrade, a technical opening that many thought would stay sealed. When it burst open in early 2023, it sparked a gold rush. For a few months, Bitcoin’s blocks were filled with images, text, and even entire video games. The miners loved the fees; the purists recoiled.
BIP-110, the proposal now under fire, aims to restrict or outright eliminate this capability. The exact technical details remain opaque—unsurprisingly, given the ideological fog. But the thrust is clear: Ordinals are an unwanted mutation, a distraction from Bitcoin’s true purpose as a sovereign store of value. Saylor and Back, despite their different backgrounds—one a corporate CEO, the other a cypherpunk veteran—share this vision. They see Bitcoin as a fortress, and Ordinals as graffiti on its walls.
But I’ve spent enough time in the trenches of protocol design to know that every fortress eventually needs new windows. The question is whether the guardians will allow them.
Core: The Real Fragmentation Is Not Liquidity—It’s Consensus
In my years auditing smart contracts and building educational frameworks, I’ve learned one hard truth: the most dangerous fragmentation is not of liquidity, but of vision. The Layer2 explosion proved that. Dozens of rollups, all chasing the same users, splitting the same shallow pools. But Bitcoin’s problem is different. Bitcoin doesn’t suffer from too many options—it suffers from too few voices willing to let the protocol breathe.
Let’s dissect the numbers. Ordinals trading volume peaked in December 2023 at roughly 3,500 BTC per day. By March 2025, that number had fallen to under 800. The drop is real, but it’s also predictable. Every new asset class experiences a hype cycle followed by a hangover. The contrarian in me sees this as healthy: the survivors will be the ones that provide genuine cultural or utility value, not just speculation.
But the critics aren't interested in cycles. They argue that Ordinals bloat the blockchain, degrade transaction throughput, and most importantly, dilute Bitcoin’s “pure” role as a settlement layer. They point to the rising fees during the Ordinals boom—fees that priced out ordinary users. They have a point. During the peak, average transaction costs hit $40, a painful number for anyone trying to send $50 to a friend.
Yet here is where my own experience intervenes. In 2020, I watched DeFi Summer unfold on Ethereum. The same complaints were raised: high fees, network congestion, speculation gone wild. And yet, out of that chaos came Uniswap, Compound, and the composability that birthed an entirely new financial paradigm. The difference? Ethereum’s community embraced the mess. They built Layer2s, sharding proposals, and EIPs that expanded possibilities. Bitcoin’s guardians, in contrast, are now trying to close the door that Taproot opened.
This is not a technical failure. It is a cultural failure. Culture is the new consensus mechanism. And right now, Bitcoin’s culture is split between those who see the protocol as a finished cathedral and those who see it as a living soil.
Let me bring in a case study from my own teaching. Last year, a student—a former banker from Zurich—asked me if Ordinals were a parasite or a petri dish. I told him: both. The parasite consumes resources (block space, attention) but the petri dish grows new ideas. The same could be said of smart contracts on Ethereum or NFTs on Solana. The key is not to kill the petri dish, but to manage the growth. BIP-110 is an attempt to sterilize the dish entirely.
And that’s where the data becomes a weapon. The critics claim Ordinals have no “legitimate” use case. But I’ve seen projects using Inscriptions for timestamped certifications, decentralized identity proofs, and even encoded medical records. These are not JPEGs. These are bridges—bridges between digital ownership and human needs. We do not build walls; we build bridges for value.
Contrarian: The Paradox of Protection
Here’s the uncomfortable truth that neither side wants to admit: the fight over BIP-110 is actually a sign of health, not decay.
Think about it. A protocol that cannot generate passionate disagreement is a dead protocol. Bitcoin is alive precisely because its community cares enough to argue. The alternative is the silence of Ethereum during the DAO hack, or the apathy that preceded the collapse of Terra. Controversy is the engine of resilience.
But—and this is the contrarian’s twist—the real danger is not Ordinals. It is the ossification of governance. If a handful of influential voices can effectively veto any proposal that challenges their ideological purity, then Bitcoin’s evolution is no longer driven by code or consensus. It is driven by charisma and power. Saylor and Back are not evil; they are passionate. But passion without openness becomes dogma.
I recall a conversation with a core developer at a conference in Prague. He told me, “The hardest part of maintaining Bitcoin is not the code. It’s keeping the community from tearing itself apart over every soft fork.” His words haunt me because they point to an uncomfortable reality: the BIP process is slow, political, and increasingly opaque. BIP-110 may never even reach a vote. It might die in committee, not because it’s technically unsound, but because it lacks the blessing of the high priests.
So what is the contrarian takeaway? That this controversy is a gift. It forces us to ask: What kind of Bitcoin do we want? A museum piece guarded by a few curators, or a living city with messy neighborhoods? In my years of teaching, I’ve found that students thrive in environments that tolerate imperfection. Bitcoin can too. The question is whether we have the courage to let it.
Takeaway: The Future Is Written in Code, But Felt in Spirit
The Ordinals battle is not the last. There will be more. Each one will test whether Bitcoin can remain the decentralized, permissionless vision its founders dreamed of—or whether it becomes yet another walled garden, protected by those who already hold the keys.
I do not know if BIP-110 will pass. But I do know that the principle at stake is larger than any single proposal. It is the principle of open evolution. Truth is not mined; it is remembered. And what we remember of this moment will shape the next decade.
To the Saylor and Backs of the world, I offer this: Your caution is valuable. Your love for Bitcoin is genuine. But remember that the protocol you protect was born from a willingness to try the untried. Satoshi didn't build walls; he planted seeds.
To the Ordinals builders, I say: Keep creating. The trading volume will return when the utility matures. The market’s silence is not a verdict; it is a pause. Ideas have no gas fees, only gravity. And the best ideas always fall to the ground where they can take root.
The future of Bitcoin is not written in stone. It is written in code, but felt in spirit. And that spirit, if we let it, can still surprise us all.