Bitcoin’s long-running debate over “anti-spam” changes took another sharp turn this week as support for the BIP-110 soft fork proposal failed to clear the threshold needed to move forward. After a contentious process, the branch effectively stalled within hours—an outcome observers had largely expected given the economic realities of running parallel mining on a minority chain.

Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers again pushed the timing of the CLARITY Act vote, and the market digested fresh signals across regulation, custody security, and institutional demand. Separately, Ethereum researchers advanced a proposal to curb staking rewards as more ETH is locked, while critics warned it could undermine incentives for validators and the broader ecosystem.

Key takeaways

BIP-110’s anti-spam approach failed to attract enough miner signaling support and quickly stalled on a minority chain.

U.S. Senate procedural steps for the CLARITY Act have been scheduled for September rather than being forced through before the August recess.

Bitcoin’s hardware wallet security concerns have spurred new AI-assisted vulnerability scanning efforts by a volunteer “red team.”

Ethereum’s proposed EIP-8363 would taper validator rewards more aggressively as staking participation rises, drawing strong pushback from parts of the DeFi sector.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their strongest weekly inflows in roughly four months, underscoring renewed institutional appetite.

Bitcoin’s BIP-110 anti-spam branch stalls

Supporters of BIP-110, a proposed soft fork designed to reduce “non financial transactions” on Bitcoin—explicitly targeting activity associated with Ordinals—had hoped the change could move from debate to implementation.