Tribe Vibe - The Fork Off and Find Out Edition
Editorial Note
Welcome to another exciting week in Bitcoin! Coming up:
🎓 Bitcoin 101: Your weekly resource to learn about Bitcoin
🗞 News: Trending News in Bitcoin
👩💼 Women in Bitcoin: Where the Bitcoin “Femergy” is happening
📆 Upcoming Events: Find the best spots to learn, connect and build
🎧 & 🎥Vibe of the Week: Our content recommendations
🎓 BIP 110 - Before we dive in, here is an old Antonopoulos video dismantling BIP 110
📈 Trending News
1. Fork Off and Find Out
The Scoop🕵️♂️: Bitcoin is experiencing a debate over “BIP-110,” a proposed temporary change (called a soft fork) aimed at limiting how much non-financial data people can stuff into Bitcoin transactions. Think of it like this: Bitcoin’s blockchain is a shared ledger primarily designed for sending value (money). In recent years, some users have been using extra space in transactions to store other things—like digital art collectibles (Ordinals), tokens, or just random data, which supporters of BIP-110 call “spam” that clogs the network and raises costs for regular money transfers.
The proposal would tighten rules for one year (e.g., smaller limits on certain data fields like OP_RETURN) to discourage this and refocus Bitcoin on payments. It has gained traction among some node runners (especially those using a modified Bitcoin Knots software), reaching noticeable percentages of listening nodes, but miner support (the computers securing the network) is near zero. A key deadline looms around early August 2026 for mandatory signaling.
On July 11, Adam Back (a prominent Bitcoin figure, cypherpunk, and Blockstream CEO whose Hashcash work influenced Bitcoin) posted critically about it. He expressed sympathy for well-meaning newer supporters but argued the idea lacks technical and ecosystem consensus. He suggested that forcing it without broad agreement would likely result in a minority “contentious fork” (a chain split where the change doesn’t win), urged supporters to “fork off and find out” if they insist, and emphasized that Bitcoin itself would not adopt it. He later added posts humanizing concerns while reiterating it won’t happen and warning against misleading users.Why You Should Care🚨: Even if you don’t own Bitcoin, this touches on bigger ideas about money and technology. Bitcoin aims to be “censorship-resistant” digital cash, hard to stop or control by any government, bank, or company. A very brief note on why censorship-free money matters: In places with unstable currencies, capital controls, or political repression, it lets people store and transfer value privately and permissionlessly, much like how the internet democratized information. Without strong protections, powerful actors could block transactions they dislike (e.g., for certain people, causes, or border crossings), undermining its role as neutral global money.
BIP-110’s backers see data spam as a threat to that mission (higher fees, bloated blocks). Opponents (including figures like Michael Saylor) argue that market fees already manage demand, and changing consensus rules to invalidate some valid transactions sets a risky precedent that could erode Bitcoin’s openness and lead to more fights or splits. It’s a live example of Bitcoin’s decentralized governance in action—no central boss decides; miners, nodes, users, and economics do.What does this mean for bitcoin?✨: Likely very little in the short term. With negligible miner signaling, BIP-110 is widely expected not to activate on the main Bitcoin chain. It could fizzle out at the August deadline or, if some nodes/miners push hard, create a short-lived minority fork that most economic activity (exchanges, wallets, etc.) ignores—similar to past failed attempts. Bitcoin would continue as-is, with fees and incentives handling data usage.
Longer term, it highlights ongoing tensions: How much should Bitcoin prioritize pure “money” vs. other uses? Debates like this test its resilience. The network’s design favors conservatism. Big changes need rough consensus to avoid chaos, which is why critics like Adam Back push back strongly against forcing low-support proposals. For everyday users, Bitcoin’s core strengths (scarcity, security, decentralization) remain intact regardless of the outcome. The situation underscores that Bitcoin evolves slowly and through market realities rather than top-down decrees.
📚 Read Adam Back’s full response HERE.
2. The Bitcoin Policy Institute to Work with the State Department and Palantir…WTF?!
The Scoop🕵️♂️: Deep breath, Tribers. The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) has just announced that it is joining Palantir, Anduril and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation as founding partners of the US State Department's new "Freedom Tech Excellence Program." Yes, that Palantir. The one running deportation databases. The program is officially framed as advancing "digital freedom" globally, with BPI seconding staff into the State Department to advise on encryption, privacy tech and "responsible AI governance." The Rage's L0la L33tz asks the question that hits everyone in the gut: whose freedom, exactly, are we talking about?
Why You Should Care🚨: A week before BPI's announcement, the same State Department held a Ministerial Conference on the "Resurgence of Political Terrorism" at which Stephen Miller called the American left a "cancer that must be rooted out" and explicitly named the debanking of left-wing organisations as a suppression tool. Treasury Secretary Bessent then declared that "no terror organisation should delude itself into the belief that its financing lies beyond our reach." Four days later the State Department published a report naming Code Pink, the DSA, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker as national security threats. Meanwhile, CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis has publicly described bitcoin as a tool to "disrupt US adversaries and gather intelligence." Freedom tech, apparently, is a two-way street.
What does this mean for bitcoin?✨: This is capture, live and on camera. A supposed advocacy group for the world's most censorship-resistant money has walked into the headquarters of the agencies most actively building financial surveillance and taken a seat at their table. Even if BPI's intentions are exactly what its president David Zell says they are, the optics and the incentives now bind the primary DC-facing bitcoin policy shop to Palantir, to a CIA that treats bitcoin as an intelligence weapon, and to an administration openly debanking its political opponents. The Matrix does not need to break bitcoin. It just needs to hire enough of its advocates to make sure the conversation happens in rooms it controls.
📚 Read the full breakdown from The Rage HERE.
👩💼 Women in Bitcoin
Katie Ananina, AKA Katie the Russian to speak at the Bitcoin Historico Conference November 11-12, 2026
Use CROWN15 for a special 15% 🎟️ Tickets HERE.
📆 Upcoming Events
✨ Lake Satoshi Retreat 📅 July 31 - August 2, 2026 - Michigan, USA 🎟️ Get your tickets HERE!
An annual community retreat in Michigan tucked into a lakeside setting. Small, low-key, and about as far from a corporate conference as you can get. Perfect for a summer orange-pilling weekend with the plebs.
✨ Acelerando Bitcoin 📅 August 12-13, 2026 - Asunción, Paraguay 🎟️ Book your spot HERE!
Paraguay’s flagship bitcoin conference, hosted by Bruno Vaccotti. A growing hub for the Latin American bitcoin community, and a great chance to soak up the region’s builder energy.
✨ Bitcoin Beyond 66 📅 August 14-15, 2026 - Bodø, Norway 🎟️ Join the gathering HERE!
Bitcoin above the Arctic Circle. A 400-strong gathering in Bodø, just past the 66th parallel, blending sound money conversation with the drama of the Norwegian summer landscape.
📚 Book Club - Raj Hayer
Episode 3 - Every Voice Matters
Watch and listen to episode 3 of our special 3-part book club series featuring Bitcoiner, TED speaker and leadership expert Raj Hayer as we explore her new book, Every Voice Matters.
🎧 🎥📚 Vibe of the Week - BIP 110 with Simon Dixon
The Battle for Bitcoin: Where I Stand on BIP-110 | Simon Dixon
Where to Acquire Bitcoin:
Visit a Bitcoin Well ATM to purchase “private bitcoin” and check out their online services HERE (Access Tribe is an affiliate of The Bitcoin Well and may receive compensation for recommending their services).
Meme of the Week
BIP 110 is Safe and Effective. If you disagree, you are a racist.
