Foundry Digital has opened a hashrate-weighted vote for mining clients on whether its pool should signal support for BIP-110, a proposed Bitcoin soft fork focused on limiting non-monetary data in Bitcoin transactions. The move gives miners on the pool a direct role in determining Foundry’s signaling stance during a period expected to last into early August.

What BIP-110 Would Change

BIP-110 is described as a temporary restriction on arbitrary data stored through Bitcoin transactions. Under the proposal, most new outputs would be limited to 34 bytes, the OP_RETURN limit would return to 83 bytes, and data pushes larger than 256 bytes would be rejected.

Backers of the proposal argue that those changes would reinforce Bitcoin’s role as peer-to-peer money by curbing uses of block space for non-monetary data. Critics, however, say the restrictions could cause valid, fee-paying transactions to be rejected.

How Foundry’s Vote Works

Foundry said votes will be weighted according to each account’s average 10-day hashrate on the pool from July 6 through July 15. During the signaling period, the pool’s public signal will reflect the majority of those hashrate-weighted votes rather than a simple count of participating accounts.

The pool begins from a default position of signaling “No.” It will remain there unless “Yes” votes rise above 51% of the voting hashrate. If that threshold is crossed, Foundry said it will switch its signal to “Yes.”

Accounts that do not respond are treated as “No” votes. At the same time, account owners are allowed to revise their choice while the voting window is still open. Foundry said individual votes will stay private, although overall results may be disclosed in aggregate form.

Why Foundry’s Position Matters

The vote carries added significance because of Foundry’s size in Bitcoin mining. The company controls roughly one-third of the network’s total hashrate, making its signaling choice potentially influential in the broader discussion around the proposal.

The signaling period is expected to continue until early August, ending at block 961,632. Until then, the pool’s stance can still change depending on how its miners allocate their hashrate-weighted votes.

Broader Debate Around the Proposal

The Foundry process highlights a wider disagreement over how Bitcoin block space should be used and whether protocol-level limits should be tightened to discourage non-monetary activity. The source article presents BIP-110 as an attempt to impose temporary restrictions, while also noting objections from opponents who warn that the proposal could invalidate some transactions that would otherwise pay fees.

For now, Foundry has not committed to support the soft fork. Its pool is set to signal against BIP-110 unless participating miners representing more than 51% of the relevant voting hashrate choose otherwise before the signaling window closes.

Source: bitcoinmagazine.com