Key Insights:
- The Bitcoin network experienced a chain split, with BIP-110 supporters initiating a soft fork at Block height 961,632.
- The BIP-110 chain failed to gain sufficient miner support and is now over 100 blocks behind the main chain.
- BIP-110 supporters say the effort is not dead, even as opponents claim it has failed. At the same time, Bitcoin remains stable at $65,000.
According to Bitcoin News, the Bitcoin Network experienced a chain split on Saturday. This happened after supporters of the BIP-110 proposal created a soft fork at Block 961,632.
BIP-110 is a controversial proposal that seeks to impose a one-year restriction on the Bitcoin network from processing non-financial data.
According to its supporters, allowing non-financial data on the Bitcoin network is enabling spam and increasing transaction costs. However, opponents have argued it could amount to an attempt to censor transactions on the network.
The proposal requires 55% miner support within 2 weeks to activate. This is a small group of miners enforcing the Bitcoin BIP-110 rules. It started rejecting blocks that did not signal support at Block 961,632.
This meant that BIP-110-supporting nodes rejected the block mined by Antpool at block height 961,632. Roughnecks, a miner within the Ocean mining pool, mined an alternative block instead, causing the split.
Bitcoin BIP-110 Now Trailing Main Network By Over 100 Blocks With Little Miner Support
The Bitcoin BIP-110 split chain produced another block at block height 961,633. However, it now trails the main Bitcoin Network, which is at block height 961,733. This is mostly because BIP-110 inherited Bitcoin mining difficulty without having its hashrate.
According to onchain data, the hashrate from the Ocean pool for BIP-110 is 1.2 EH/s. At this rate, it would take 5 days to mine each block. With an approximate 2,014 blocks remaining before its next difficulty adjustment, it would take 27 years to produce them.
Interestingly, Luke Dashjr continues to insist that BIP-110 has not failed. He is Bitcoin Knots’ creator and one of the key proponents of BIP-110. In a post on X, he claimed that “bad actors are once again spreading lies about the death of BIP-110.”
Still, Roughnecks, which mined the split block, has announced it will stop mining operations under that name. They stated that this was not a defeat for the BIP-110 movement. However, they also advised anyone mining on the BIP-110 chain under the current algorithm to stop until further notice.
Bitcoin Sees No Change in Price as BIP-110 Opponents Take Victory Lap
Meanwhile, Bitcoin stakeholders who opposed the BIP-110 proposal believe its failure validates their position. Strategy chairman Michael Saylor had argued that consensus rules should focus only on security threats, not on perceived purpose.
With the proposal now failing, Saylor said the Bitcoin network worked as intended. He noted that 99.85% of Bitcoin hash power remained on the main network. He added that while anyone can form a Bitcoin fork, it is the “security, utility, capital, and users” that make a fork irrelevant.
Blockstream founder and one of Bitcoin’s early developers, Adam Back, also noted that BIP-110 failed because it lacked consensus. In a series of tweets, he highlighted several mistakes of BIP-110, stating that it was bound to fail.
According to Back, the idea that those who opposed the proposal supported spam is wrong. They supported it only because it is mathematically impossible to censor Bitcoin.
Interestingly, the market reaction to the fork has been neutral, with the Bitcoin price remaining stable over the last 24 hours. The flagship asset is trading around $65,000 with slight gains.
Oluwapelumi Adejumo is an experienced cryptocurrency journalist who has contributed to leading blockchain news platforms, including CryptoSlate and BeInCrypto.
