A Bitcoin soft fork driven by BIP-110 split from the main chain after block 961,632 but stalled within hours as the Roughnecks pool mined only two blocks before being stranded. The main chain built an 18-block lead within a day, with roughly 99.85 percent of hashpower staying on the original chain. Supporters insisted the proposal remained viable, while critics noted the minority chain had no realistic path to catching up. The dispute traces back to Bitcoin Core dropping its old limit on OP_RETURN data, which allowed non-monetary data to fill blocks.
A Bitcoin soft fork built around BIP-110 split from the main chain after block 961,632 this week. The Roughnecks pool mined exactly two blocks before the rest of the network’s hashpower left it stranded.
BIP-110 needed miners to signal support by block 961,632. When AntPool mined the first non-signaling block, nodes running Bitcoin Knots split into their own chain.
Bitcoin’s original chain reached block 961,651, opening an 18-block lead within about a day. The BIP-110 branch found blocks far slower than the usual ten minutes with only a sliver of total hashpower behind it.
BIP-110 supporter Matthew Kratter admitted the minority chain would need “massive change” to catch up. Michael Saylor later put the gap at more than 80 blocks, stating roughly 99.85 percent of Bitcoin’s hashpower had stayed with the main chain.
Lyn Alden made a similar distinction, saying the majority of miners, economic nodes, and exchanges continued with the non-fork. “It’s not that miners are in control,” she wrote. “The fork just didn’t have consensus.”
BIP-110 supporters rejected that conclusion. Luke Dashjr wrote that claims of the proposal’s failure were false, arguing BIP-110 remained uncontested because no counter-fork had emerged.
Roughnecks tweeted asking those mining on the BIP-110 chain to stop until further notice. Fred Krueger pointed out that the lead had grown from “153 to 2.”
Bitcoin’s price barely moved through any of it. BTC traded around $65,000, up modestly on the day and nearly 4% for the week.
The underlying fight traces back to Bitcoin Core dropping its old limit on OP_RETURN data. This allowed non-monetary data like Ordinals and Runes to fill blocks that BIP-110 backers wanted reserved for payments.
Farside Investors had warned that wallets using Miniscript could generate addresses built on soon-to-be-banned Taproot scripts, making any bitcoin sent to them after activation unspendable. Pay-to-public-key outputs holding more than 1.7 million BTC faced new restrictions as well.
Writer Secure Sovereign, who supported the underlying fix but not this activation path, said the effort left BIP-110 as “a distant minority with no realistic path to catching the main chain.” Bitcoin developer Murch moved to remove Luke Dashjr from his role as a BIP editor, citing his handling of the proposal as a conflict of interest.
