Foundry USA Opens Miner Vote on BIP-110 as Bitcoin Debates Data Storage Limits

Foundry USA Pool, which controls roughly one-third of Bitcoin's total hashrate, has opened a vote among its mining customers on whether to signal support for BIP-110, a proposal to restrict the amount of data that can be embedded in Bitcoin transactions. The vote began this week and represents a pivotal moment in Bitcoin's protocol governance, given the pool's outsized influence over consensus signaling.

BIP-110 seeks to reduce transaction data storage capacity on the network. The proposal touches on a longstanding tension in Bitcoin development: balancing block space efficiency against the flexibility to store information on-chain. Current signaling for BIP-110 sits below 1%, suggesting the proposal has not yet gained broad miner backing, despite Foundry USA's decision to put it to a vote.

The move highlights how mining pool operators function as intermediaries in Bitcoin's governance model. Pools aggregate the hashpower of thousands of individual miners, then direct how that hashpower signals support for protocol changes. Foundry USA's 33% hashrate share gives its voting mechanism outsized weight in determining whether a proposal reaches the signaling threshold needed for activation. This concentration of voting power echoes earlier protocol debates, including the SegWit activation in 2017 and the block size wars that preceded it, when mining pool consensus proved decisive in shaping Bitcoin's technical direction.

BIP-110's focus on data storage relates to broader questions about how Bitcoin should evolve. Some developers argue that restricting transaction data capacity improves efficiency and reduces bloat. Others contend that current data storage capabilities enable legitimate use cases and that reducing them would harm functionality without proportional benefit. The below-1% signaling rate suggests skepticism among miners about the proposal's merits or implementation approach.

Bitcoin's decentralization depends partly on distributed hashrate, yet mining pools necessarily concentrate that power. When a single pool controls one-third of the network's computational power and unilaterally initiates voting on protocol changes, it raises questions about whether signaling reflects genuine community consensus or the preferences of a centralized entity. Foundry USA's decision to let its customers vote rather than dictate support for BIP-110 is a step toward distributed decision-making, but the underlying concentration of power remains.

The outcome of this vote will likely influence how the Bitcoin development community treats future proposals that lack broad grassroots support. If BIP-110 gains traction despite low current signaling, it could signal that mining pools are willing to champion protocol changes independently. If it stalls, it reinforces the principle that protocol upgrades require organic community buy-in, not top-down promotion by major pools.

The vote remains open as of July 22, 2026. Miners in Foundry USA's pool can submit their preference through the pool's interface. The result will not directly determine BIP-110's fate, but it will shape the narrative around its viability and whether the broader Bitcoin community sees value in the proposed change.