BIP-110 fork stalls at 2 blocks, backers plan PoW switch

Bitcoin's BIP-110 soft fork produced only two blocks before stalling at height 961,633, with miner support at 2.53 percent versus the 55 percent activation threshold. The chain split occurred at block height 961,632, when a minority of miners began producing blocks under the new rules.

"Anyone can fork Bitcoin, but without security, utility, capital, and users, a fork is meaningless," Michael Saylor, co-founder and executive chairman of Strategy, said on X. "Consensus is achieved through effort, not through declarations."

Node support for the proposal stood at 15.07 percent (17,913 of 118,850 nodes), and the only mining pool backing BIP-110, Ocean, controls 1.6 percent of network hashrate. The fork's backers, led by core Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr, are now planning to change the proof-of-work algorithm to bypass main-chain miners entirely.

The proposed PoW change would transform BIP-110 from a soft fork into a hard fork, creating a separate chain with its own token. Bitcoin traded at $64,980 as of 08:00 UTC, up 0.28 percent over 24 hours, with total crypto market cap at $2.29 trillion and BTC dominance at 56.82 percent.

BIP-110 was designed as a temporary soft fork to limit non-payment data embedded in Bitcoin transactions, targeting inscriptions and Runes that have grown in popularity for storing arbitrary data on-chain. Proponents argued the restriction would reduce node storage requirements and blockchain bloat. Opponents viewed it as an attempt at censorship that would restrict how users can utilize the blockchain beyond simple value transfer.

In the Bitcoin Knots Discord channel, Dashjr and BIP-110 supporters have been discussing alternative proof-of-work algorithms including RandomX, Scrypt, BLAKE3, and Autolykos v2. Dashjr proposed selecting the final algorithm through a deterministic random process, arguing that "no one will know in advance before everyone knows," reducing the risk of some miners preparing chain-specific equipment ahead of others.

F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun criticized the plan, saying on X: "Luke Dashjr is not only financially bankrupt but also personally bankrupt; attempting to change the PoW algorithm will not end well either." Cypherpunk pioneer Adam Back also pushed back, saying BIP-110 "has not achieved consensus, so economic nodes and the market have ignored it, and therefore miners have not mined it."

The BIP-110 chain has not yet enabled any PoW change, and Dashjr has not announced the selected algorithm or activation block height. Relevant experimental code has been ported to the Bitcoin Knots codebase.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.