BIP-110 soft fork attempt collapsed after mining only two blocks, failing to gain hashpower consensus on data spam limits.
Tech & Launches ·
A Bitcoin soft fork attempt centered on BIP-110 created a minority chain after block 961,632 this week but rapidly collapsed. The mining pool Roughnecks produced two blocks on the alternative chain before the broader network's hashpower moved away, leaving the fork stranded. The proposal sought to enforce stricter rules on data spam by testing whether a smaller group of node operators could compel miner compliance, only to demonstrate the weakness of a minority hashrate when consensus fails to materialize.
Bitcoin's main chain extended to block 961,651 within roughly a day, opening an 18-block gap. The forked branch inherited the same 127.48T mining difficulty but possessed only a fraction of total hashpower, causing blocks to arrive far slower than the ten-minute average. By August 9, approximately 99.85 percent of Bitcoin's hashpower remained on the original chain, according to observers including Michael Saylor, while a Roughnecks statement asked miners on the BIP-110 branch to cease operations pending further direction.
The dispute stems from Bitcoin Core's removal of prior OP_RETURN data limits, which allowed non-payment data such as Ordinals and Runes to occupy block space that BIP-110 advocates sought to restrict. Concerns emerged around wallet compatibility and unspendable outputs tied to certain script formats. Some who aligned with BIP-110's underlying goals, including developer Secure Sovereign, disputed the activation method itself. The failed attempt has since triggered internal conflict, with another developer moving to strip Luke Dashjr of his BIP editor status over the proposal's handling, a dispute still unresolved.