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Michael Saylor wants everyone to stop touching the code.
The executive chairman of Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy and now the largest corporate Bitcoin holder on the planet, published a thread on X on July 28 declaring that Bitcoin’s consensus rules are effectively its constitution. And like any good constitutional originalist, he thinks amendments are a terrible idea.
His target list has expanded well beyond BIP-110, the proposal that would restrict non-monetary data embedding on Bitcoin’s base layer. Now covenants, larger block sizes, and essentially any modification to the protocol’s foundation all fall under the same umbrella: what Saylor calls “constitutional offenses.”
The 110-reasons guy is back with more reasons
This latest salvo isn’t exactly a surprise. Earlier in July, Saylor published what he dubbed “110 reasons” against BIP-110 in a detailed thread on X, laying out his case that the proposal poses a greater danger than the problems it claims to solve.
BIP-110 targets inscription protocols like Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, and Runes, all of which embed non-monetary data directly onto Bitcoin’s blockchain. Saylor’s argument: invalidating legitimate transactions that pay fees is a form of censorship, and censorship on Bitcoin’s base layer is an existential threat to the network’s value proposition.
Saylor’s framing positions Bitcoin’s current ruleset as something almost sacred, a foundational document that defines property rights, scarcity, and settlement finality. Any faction that rewrites those rules, he argues, is effectively staging a coup against every holder’s economic sovereignty.
Strategy’s $63B bet on immutability
Strategy holds 843,775 BTC, acquired at an average price of approximately $75,476 per coin.
The company hasn’t bought or sold any Bitcoin during the latest reporting period.
Saylor isn’t alone in this fight. Adam Back, the CEO of Blockstream and one of the few people actually cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper’s references, has publicly backed the opposition to BIP-110.
Innovation at the edges, not the core
Saylor’s philosophy boils down to a simple architectural principle: keep the base layer dumb and secure, and let innovation happen on layers built on top of it.
Covenant proposals, which Saylor now also opposes, would enable more sophisticated spending conditions on Bitcoin transactions. Proponents see them as necessary infrastructure for scaling self-custody and enabling things like vaults that protect users from theft. Critics, Saylor apparently among them, see them as adding complexity and attack surface to a system whose simplicity is its greatest feature.
The larger blocks debate dates back to the block size wars of 2015-2017 that eventually led to the Bitcoin Cash fork. Saylor lumping it in with covenants and BIP-110 suggests he’s drawing a bright line around the entire base layer, not just specific proposals.
What this means for investors
For institutional investors watching this debate, Saylor’s positioning offers a clear signal about how the largest corporate holder views Bitcoin’s value proposition. It’s not about programmability, smart contracts, or novel use cases. It’s about scarcity, immutability, and predictability.
Bitcoin has no formal governance structure, no foundation with veto power, no benevolent dictator. Changes happen through rough consensus among miners, node operators, and developers. When someone with 843,775 BTC starts calling proposed changes “constitutional offenses,” that’s not just rhetoric. It’s an economic actor with enormous influence attempting to set the boundaries of what’s politically possible within the network.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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