The Data Behind the BIP-110 Fight | Renaud Cuny | BIS #208

— Renaud Cuny introduced the Bitcoin Portal, a network health scoring tool measuring Bitcoin's decentralization and security across mining, block space, nodes, and governance dimensions.

— The site quantifies spam on the blockchain: currently 45.5% of block space is non-financial data (ordinals, runes, OP_RETURNs), with direction of change more meaningful than absolute numbers.

— Mining centralization remains Bitcoin's primary weakness—top five pools control ~90% of hash rate; hardware manufacturing is even more concentrated (Bitmain and Microbt control 82% of ASIC sales).

— BIP-110 activation expected in August aims to allow nodes to reject blocks containing large OP_RETURNs (>80 bytes) without forking the chain; miner signaling remains minimal but adoption theory suggests early movers will trigger cascading compliance.

— Hash renting (via Ocean and Datum) enables individual node runners to become true miners rather than hashers, decentralizing block template creation and reducing mining pool gatekeeping.

— Node diversity is poor: 74% run Bitcoin Core, creating implementation risk despite near 100,000 total nodes; Bitcoin Knots and other implementations are encouraged for network health.

— Run a full node and consider renting hash through Ocean or Datum to support decentralized mining; block template control matters more for Bitcoin's long-term resilience than hash power alone.

— Monitor the Bitcoin Portal's direction of key metrics (spam %, mining pool concentration, node diversity) over months and quarters rather than fixating on single-point scores; improving trends signal genuine health improvements.

— If you run a node, upgrade to Bitcoin Core v28 or later, or consider Bitcoin Knots, to signal support for BIP-110 ahead of August activation—this strengthens the signal without risk and prepares the network for potential voluntary miner compliance.