Bitcoin Dev Embeds 66KB Image via SegWit v0, Bypassing BIP-110

An Experiment That Challenges the Anti-Spam Proposal

Slovak programmer Martin Habovštiak has successfully embedded a 66 KB image directly into the Bitcoin blockchain. The transaction was crafted without Taproot, OP_RETURN opcodes, or OP_IF instructions — effectively circumventing every restriction proposed under BIP-110.

"Oooops, my contiguous image file got misinterpreted as a transaction WITHOUT OP_RETURN by the Bitcoin network and now it's forever contiguously stored in the chain!" — Martin Habovštiak (@kixunil), original post

The publicly accessible transaction contains hexadecimal data that, when decoded, converts into a TIFF image file. Instead of Taproot, the developer utilized SegWit v0.

Why This Matters

BIP-110 is a proposal introduced in early December 2025 by the Bitcoin Knots team. It aims to temporarily restrict — for a period of one year — the size of data transmitted within transactions at the consensus level, implemented via a soft fork. Its proponents frame BIP-110 as both an anti-spam measure and legal protection for node operators against illegal content distributed through the blockchain.

At the time the original report was published, approximately 8.8% of network nodes were signaling support for BIP-110.

Habovštiak's experiment shows that the proposed restrictions can be sidestepped using existing protocol features, raising fundamental questions about BIP-110's practical effectiveness as an anti-spam tool.

The Developer's Stance

Habovštiak published detailed instructions on his blog for verifying the transaction and extracting the image. He stated that the project's goal was to provide evidence that the claims made by Bitcoin Knots supporters "do not correspond to reality."

According to the developer, the central argument from Knots proponents is that the legality of data stored on hard drives as part of the blockchain carries legal significance — hence their push to reduce the size of every bit of data on the Bitcoin network so that no one can store anything illegal. Habovštiak called this premise inherently absurd.

The programmer emphasized that his experiment was a one-time action and pledged not to release the source code, to avoid triggering "a new wave of NFT shitcoins" on the Bitcoin network. While he described himself as an opponent of blockchain spam, he stressed that he despises dishonesty even more.

He further argued that spammers will inevitably find workarounds to any defensive mechanism, and worse — many proposed countermeasures not only fail to curb spam but can actually exacerbate the problem by increasing its volume.

Broader Context Around BIP-110

Earlier in February, Blockstream CEO Adam Back characterized the BIP-110 update as an attack on Bitcoin's reputation and likened it to "lynch justice." Habovštiak's experiment adds a concrete technical argument to the ongoing debate over the proposal's merits.