Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor has published a detailed statement on threats to bitcoin. We break down what crypto market participants need to know.
Michael Saylor called bitcoin’s (BTC▲$79,607.00) greatest risk not external enemies but internal factions trying to rewrite consensus rules. In his view, bitcoin’s consensus rules are its constitution–they define property rights, scarcity, settlement, and power distribution. Rewriting those rules for any group’s convenience violates the economic rights of all participants.
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The statement comes as the signaling window for BIP-110 approaches. The proposal would limit arbitrary data in transactions. The window opens around August 9.
Contents
BIP-110, Covenants, and Big Blocks: What Saylor Calls a ‘Constitutional Crime‘
Saylor criticized several protocol change proposals. BIP-110, he argued, would censor legitimate fee-paying transactions. Covenants complicate consensus rules and create new security risks. Increasing block size reduces block space scarcity and raises bandwidth requirements.
“Some proposals, like BIP-110, censor legitimate transactions. Others add covenant mechanisms. Still others demand larger blocks. Different tools — same constitutional crime: a faction rewrites bitcoin’s rules and imposes its goals, costs, and risks on everyone else,” Saylor wrote.
He emphasized that all these proposals share a common flaw: groups are trying to change bitcoin’s rules and impose them on all network participants.
“Bitcoin has won. Now it must survive victory. Its greatest threat is not an enemy at the gate but corruption from within — factions inventing pretexts, rewriting rules, and seizing economic rights until freedom becomes permission and law becomes prey,” he said.
Read more: Is Michael Saylor Losing Faith in Bitcoin? Strategy Sells 3,588 BTC Worth $226M
Fee Market and Network Security: Why Saylor Opposes Changes
Saylor paid special attention to the fee market. Miners risk their own capital to secure the network, and block rewards halve every 210,000 blocks. Increasingly, fees must carry the weight of network security.
“Destroy the fee market, and you deprive those who protect bitcoin of the resources they need most. That’s not protection. That’s disarmament,” he said.
BIP-110 supporters disagree. They argue that unstructured data attachments like Ordinals bloat nodes and crowd out legitimate payments. BIP-110 author Dayton Ohm and his supporters see the proposal as spam protection, not censorship. Blockstream CEO Adam Back also opposes BIP-110–but his main concern is the low 55% activation threshold and the risk of a hard fork.
Read more: Bitcoin Critic Peter Schiff Tells Bulls to Buy BTC, Not MSTR
Strategy Pauses Bitcoin Buys: $3.75B Reserve and Missed Target
Amid Saylor’s statements, Strategy has paused bitcoin purchases. A July 27 8-K filing confirms the company added $525 million to its dollar reserve. The total has reached $3.75 billion–enough to cover dividends for 2.1 years at about $1.76 billion in annual preferred share obligations.
Strategy had announced a goal of accumulating 1 million BTC by the end of 2026. It now holds 843,775 BTC–a shortfall of 156,225 BTC. With about 22 weeks left in the year, closing the gap would require buying roughly 7,000 BTC per week. Currently, the company isn’t buying any.
Learn more: Strategy Unveils Bitcoin Bank Adoption Index — Average Integration at 32%
