According to Woofun AI, on July 25, Bitcoin officially entered the final 2,016 block regular processing window stipulated by BIP-110, but the percentage of miners supporting the proposal was only 0.89%, far lower than the 1,109 blocks (or 55% support rate) required to achieve the normal locking effect.
This disparity means that if approval ratings continue to be sluggish, the mandatory version switch phase will most likely begin in August. Core developer Jameson Lopp sees 'cleaning up the consensus mechanism', 'contract mechanism', and 'quantum technology responses' as Bitcoin's next key tasks, and he himself is on the cusp of this transformation: he not only opposes BIP-110, but is also deeply involved in drafting the BIP-361 draft on the transition to the post-quantum era. The draft aims to address time-warping attacks, extremely high block verification costs, Merkle tree ambiguity related to 64-bit transactions, and possible future duplicate transaction detection requirements, marking that Bitcoin governance is at a crossroads of life and death.
The underlying reason is the technical debt accumulated over a long period of time at the bottom of the agreement. Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that there are four recorded flaws in the current consensus mechanism that, if not fixed in a timely manner, will seriously threaten network security. Among them, the time-warping vulnerability allows groups with large hashing power to reduce the difficulty of mining to a minimum within 38 days and increase subsidy revenue through faster block generation speed, thus completely changing the pattern of interests of miners. Another fatal flaw is that specially designed blocks can take minutes to process on high-end hardware and hours on less powerful devices. This asymmetry can easily cause node forks. The introduction of BIP-54 aims to limit the number of signature operations per transaction, reduce the worst-case verification burden by 40 times, and abolish the 64-byte transaction format that has been viewed as a non-standard format by miners since 2019 — the last time Bitcoin recorded such transactions on the chain was 2016. ' “Consensus mechanism clean-up” provides Bitcoin with a maintenance and testing mechanism with clear failure points and measurable solutions. It is strictly reviewed through specification documents, reference codes, test vectors, and various edge cases in actual application conditions over the past few months.
However, if the review is further delayed, these known flaws will remain in the agreement. If an attack occurs at that time, it will force the review process to accelerate under a state of emergency, leading to chaos in governance.
It is worth noting that the 'safe deposit function' is a key tool to improve users' self-hosting capabilities. Currently, withdrawal attempts are announced through the first transaction to create delays, giving account owners an opportunity to transfer funds to a more secure address or prevent thieves from withdrawing funds. However, its current implementation relies on pre-signed transactions and signed keys that have been destroyed, making it quite vulnerable when account balances are large or stored for a long time.
BIP-448 proposed a TAPScript scheme with three operating codes, combining OP_TEMPLATEHASH with OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK and OP_INTERNALKEY. Gregory Sanders, Antoine Poisseau, and Steven Roos linked this solution with rebundable transactions, simpler payment channels, multi-party Lightning network design, state chains, and Ark network variants.
Reviewers need to balance the TEMPLATEHASH function used alone (because of its smaller review scope and the safe deposit box tool appeared earlier) with the wider range of payment system features supported by BIP-448 and the advantages of reducing the possibility of another soft fork. Although the longer testing period can keep existing consensus rules unchanged, it also means that users will continue to rely on escrow services or unstable pre-signature structures, and delays in the safe deposit box function, recovery paths, and restricted spending templates help keep control of funds out of the hands of exchanges, ETFs, or professional custodians.
The second stage requires a quantum security rescue mechanism for traditional spending methods. BIP-361 aims to prevent quantum computers from stealing exposed bitcoins through traditional spending channels. Any rescue mechanism must involve rules on certification design, privacy protection, fraud prevention and control, and management of dormant funds. Currently, the draft has not determined a specific plan.
Judging from trend research, under an optimistic scenario, the BIP-110 process can set clear standards for network preparation. BIP-54 received key reviews, various contract proposals obtained more practical application data, and the quantum technology plan has several years to implement, thereby strengthening wallet anti-theft functions, strict node verification standards, and giving custodians more time to identify risky assets.
However, the pessimistic scenario shows that the spam problem may turn every soft fork into a factional fight. Although the 'consensus mechanism cleanup' remains in the system, the contract mechanism work is scattered among competing opcode schemes, and the formulation of post-quantum strategies is delayed until the recent emergence of cryptographic threats. As a result, Bitcoin will continue to be integrated into the same governance system with known vulnerabilities, weak self-hosting tools, and compressed migration plans. The August processing window stipulated by BIP-110 will leave a unique record in Bitcoin's governance history, and the 'consensus mechanism cleanup', contract mechanism, and BIP-361 will further improve this record, covering the survival and development of maintenance, escrow, and encryption technology. The future direction of Bitcoin depends on whether a protocol proposal to protect core functions can be selected and agreed upon by all parties before an emergency occurs. This is another severe governance test facing the Bitcoin community following the early hard fork controversy.