Bitcoin developer Matt Corallo believes there is an 80% chance that BIP-54 will become the network’s next soft fork. The proposed upgrade, known as the Great Consensus Cleanup, aims to fix four long-standing weaknesses in Bitcoin’s existing rules.
According to a November 4 report by Decrypt, Corallo discussed the proposal during an interview on MARA Foundation TV with Isabel Foxen Duke, head of the MARA Foundation.
He explained that Bitcoin developers may need to focus on fixing existing technical problems before introducing new features. The proposal originally came from work Corallo introduced in 2019 and was later developed into a formal Bitcoin Improvement Proposal with developer Antoine Poinsot.
Although BIP-54 does not have a confirmed activation date, Corallo believes it addresses problems that developers already understand and recognize as worth fixing. He described them as genuine concerns, although they do not currently pose an immediate threat to the network.
The proposal focuses on four main areas: mining difficulty adjustments, block validation, Merkle tree proofs and duplicate coinbase transactions.
One of the biggest concerns is a vulnerability known as the timewarp attack. It could allow miners controlling most of Bitcoin’s computing power to manipulate block timestamps and artificially reduce mining difficulty.
Bitcoin normally adjusts mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks, which takes approximately two weeks. Under extreme conditions, the existing rules could potentially allow an attacker to push difficulty down to its minimum within 38 days.
BIP-54 proposes stricter timestamp requirements at the beginning and end of each difficulty adjustment period. It also includes a two-hour allowance to account for normal timing differences.
Another issue involves specially designed blocks that could take an unusually long time to validate. Some blocks could require several minutes to process on powerful computers and potentially hours on less powerful machines, giving malicious miners an opportunity to slow down competing participants.
To address this problem, BIP-54 would limit certain signature verification operations to 2,500 per transaction. According to the proposal, this could reduce the worst-case block validation time by around 40 times.
The third change targets weaknesses in Bitcoin’s Merkle tree system. Certain transactions containing exactly 64 bytes of non-witness data could resemble internal Merkle tree nodes. This could potentially trick lightweight Bitcoin clients into accepting false transaction inclusion proofs.
The proposal would prevent transactions of that specific size from being accepted, removing the underlying problem.
The fourth change addresses duplicate coinbase transactions. These are special transactions miners create to receive block rewards.
BIP-54 would introduce additional requirements for coinbase transaction fields to prevent older transaction identification problems from appearing again at future block heights. The proposal identifies block 1,983,702 as the earliest future height where a duplicate coinbase transaction could occur under the current rules.
Despite Corallo’s confidence, not all developers agree that this should be Bitcoin’s next major upgrade.
Paul Sztorc, co-founder and CEO of LayerTwo Labs, described the idea of activating BIP-54 as “kind of depressing.” He argued that the proposal focuses on maintenance rather than introducing new capabilities to Bitcoin.
Sztorc also said developers surveyed at TABconf in Atlanta generally expected the cleanup proposal to become the next soft fork. Their estimates suggested that activation could happen as early as September 2027, although most expected it in 2028 or later.
The debate comes after years of disagreements over Bitcoin upgrades since Taproot activated in November 2021.
Sztorc has previously questioned whether Bitcoin developers can reach enough agreement to activate future soft forks. He pointed to proposals such as OP_CAT, which would restore an operation allowing Bitcoin scripts to combine data and support more complex transaction conditions.
Another proposal, OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY under BIP-119, has also struggled to gain broad support across the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Quantum computing has created another area of discussion among developers. Coinbase has recently outlined possible ways to protect Bitcoin against future quantum threats, including BIP-360 and its proposed Pay-to-Merkle-Root structure.
Unlike these proposals, BIP-54 is focused on fixing weaknesses in Bitcoin’s existing consensus rules rather than adding new features.
Beyond its technical improvements, Corallo believes BIP-54 could help establish a clearer process for approving future soft forks.
He said Bitcoin upgrades have often involved difficult technical decisions, but disagreements over how those changes should be activated have become another major challenge.
The debate over Taproot is one example. Developers and participants disagreed over whether miners should signal support before activation or whether users should enforce an activation deadline.
Corallo believes the BIP-54 process could help the community work through these disagreements and develop a more predictable approach for future upgrades.
The proposal reached complete specification status on May 22, 2026. However, this does not mean it has been approved or activated on the Bitcoin network.
Its rules are designed to tighten existing validation requirements while remaining compatible with nodes that have not upgraded. Still, the authors encourage node operators to update their software so they can independently enforce the proposed changes.
For miners, the documentation also notes that Bitcoin Core versions 29.0 and 30.0 already include protections compatible with certain proposed restrictions. Mining pools would still need to make sure their coinbase transactions follow the new requirements.