Bitcoin's BIP-110 Fork Mined Two Blocks and Died: The Full Breakdown

On August 8, 2026, the Bitcoin blockchain experienced a consensus split that was over almost before it began. Nodes enforcing the BIP-110 soft fork rejected blocks that did not signal support, creating a minority chain that mined just two blocks and then stalled. Within hours, the main chain had pulled 57 blocks ahead . The event was less a civil war and more a one-sided defection — a near-total miner boycott that killed the proposal in its tracks .

What Was BIP-110 Attempting to Do?

BIP-110 (the "Reduced Data Temporary Softfork") was designed to temporarily restrict arbitrary data — such as Ordinals inscriptions and NFT-like blobs — from being embedded in Bitcoin transactions. The proposal would have added seven new consensus rules for approximately one year, including limits on scriptPubKey sizes, OP_RETURN outputs, and witness data . To activate via standard miner signaling, the proposal required 55% of blocks in a retarget period (1,109 out of 2,016 blocks) to set version bit 4 .

The Chain Split at Block 961,632: How It Unfolded

The split occurred on August 8, 2026, when the mandatory signaling window opened at block height 961,632. The mechanics were swift:

• Block 961,632 — AntPool mined the dominant-chain block, which did not include the required bit-4 signal. Nodes running BIP-110 software immediately rejected it, splitting off onto their own branch . The minority pool Roughnecks mined a rival version of 961,632 that did signal support, creating two competing chains at the same height .
• Block 961,633 — The BIP-110 branch managed to mine one more block, then stalled entirely. Over the next eight hours the minority chain produced exactly two blocks, while the main Bitcoin chain mined roughly 48–57 blocks and pulled dozens ahead .
• By evening, the main chain was at ~961,690 with the BIP-110 chain frozen at 961,633 — a 57-block gap that never closed . No major mining pool allocated meaningful hashpower to the minority fork .

Why the Fork Failed: A Silent Miner Boycott

The root cause of BIP-110's failure was simple: miners overwhelmingly refused to participate. When the mandatory signaling window opened, miner support stood at just 2.53% — far below the 55% threshold needed to lock in . Roughly 99.85% of Bitcoin's hashpower stayed with the original chain .

OCEAN pool, which had initially routed some hashrate to the fork, cut its support by 96% after the split . The first 59 dominant-chain blocks in the window carried no bit-4 signal at all .

David Schwartz (Ripple CTO) later accused Bitcoin Knots — the BIP-110 implementation — of misleading the public by claiming the Bitcoin network was "under attack" and that block production had slowed, claims contradicted by on-chain data . He called the post "embarrassing" and "nonsense" .

Why Key Figures and Mining Pools Criticized BIP-110

Michael Saylor — The Strategy executive chairman published a 110-point essay titled "110 Reasons BIP 110 Is a Bad Idea," arguing that Bitcoin's consensus rules are a "constitution" and that changing them to censor fee-paying transactions sets a dangerous precedent that attacks the economic rights of all participants . "The proposed cure is more dangerous than the condition," Saylor wrote .

Adam Back — The Blockstream CEO called BIP-110 technically flawed and warned that forcing activation would split Bitcoin into a minority fork. He dismissed the spam-reduction argument and told supporters to "fork off and find out" . Back argued the proposal conflicts with Bitcoin's decentralized, permissionless design by attempting to police how others use the network .

David Schwartz — The former Ripple CTO and XRP Ledger architect criticized the post-fork messaging from Bitcoin Knots, accusing the project of misleading readers who lack the technical context to verify the claims .

Jameson Lopp — The Casa CTO and longtime Bitcoin engineer was cited among prominent Bitcoiners opposed to the proposal, consistent with his historical arguments against non-consensus soft forks .

Mining Pools — Virtually every major pool (AntPool, F2Pool, Binance Pool, etc.) declined to signal, making the near-universal miner boycott the direct cause of the fork's death .

Backers' Next Steps: Proof-of-Work Change and September 1 Breakaway

After the minority fork died, BIP-110 supporters pivoted far beyond the original soft fork into a plan that critics have called a drastic escalation :

• New proof-of-work algorithm — Backers are planning to abandon SHA-256d entirely and adopt a different PoW algorithm. Luke Dashjr proposed using a deterministic random process to select the new algorithm from a shortlist of candidates (reportedly including RandomX, KT256, BLAKE3, and Scrypt), a move that would make existing ASIC mining rigs worthless on the breakaway chain .
• September 1 target — Supporters are aiming for September 1, 2026 to launch the new coin via a hard fork that severs the chain from Bitcoin's miners entirely . This date corresponds to when BIP-110 would have activated had it received sufficient miner support .
• "Last resort" code — Developer Chris Guida dusted off PoW-swap code in Bitcoin Knots, and a contingency proposal was drafted in early August as a "last-resort plan" to bypass miner resistance .

The move effectively transitions what was a soft fork attempt into a separate altcoin, explicitly designed to "chase off" Bitcoin miners by making their hardware useless on the new chain . As of August 11, 2026, Bitcoin Knots announced that a new PoW algorithm would be selected via deterministic random selection at 14:00 UTC , though no algorithm had been finalized or activated at the time of reporting .

In short, BIP-110 died from a near-total miner boycott, produced two blocks on a ghost chain, and its backers are now planning to launch a separate proof-of-work coin — a development that critics have called misleading and technically questionable .