A high-stakes attempt to enforce strict data limitations on the Bitcoin blockchain has collided with economic realities. Following mandatory activation at block 961,632 on August 8, 2026, the minority chain enforcing Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110) stalled after producing only two blocks. As the primary Bitcoin network continued to process transactions without interruption, supporters of the minority chain found themselves stranded by Bitcoin’s inherited mining difficulty, sparking intense technical debates over whether to alter the network’s underlying consensus mechanism.
According to on-chain data and reports from crypto news outlets including CoinDesk and crypto.news, the enforcing branch remained frozen at block 961,633 while the dominant main chain surged past block 961,744—expanding the gap between the two networks to 111 blocks within a single day. The stalling highlights the extreme structural friction involved in split execution when an enforcing minority lacks the computational power to maintain block production.
A Hard Split Without the Hashpower
BIP-110, formally termed the Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, was authored by pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm with significant structural contributions from Bitcoin Knots maintainer Luke Dashjr. The proposal aims to curb non-financial data insertion—specifically targeting Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, and associated inscriptions—for a designated one-year period. Proponents argue that restricting non-monetary data preserves node decentralization and keeps transaction validation accessible, framing the measure as a defense of Bitcoin’s core purpose as a monetary settlement layer.
However, implementation mechanics relied on voluntary miner adoption that never materialized. BIP-110 was designed around a 55% miner-signaling threshold before entering a mandatory enforcement window between blocks 961,632 and 963,647. Prior to the cutoff, signaling hovered between 2% and 2.53%, with only 51 of 2,016 blocks in difficulty period 476 signaling support. When enforcing nodes began rejecting non-compliant blocks on August 8, the lack of miner participation immediately bifurcated the network into a dominant, non-enforcing chain and an isolated minority branch.
Initial block production on the minority chain was brief. A mining pool known as Roughnecks, operating through Ocean Mining’s DATUM system, successfully processed block 961,632 and followed it with block 961,633. Shortly thereafter, mining operations on the endpoint ground to a near-total halt, leaving observed hashpower on Ocean’s BIP-110 endpoint at approximately 257 petahashes per second (PH/s)—a negligible fraction of the global Bitcoin network capacity.
Inherited Difficulty and the Reality of Block Production
The core bottleneck facing the minority chain is mathematical. Upon splitting at difficulty period 477, the BIP-110 enforcing branch inherited Bitcoin’s full mining difficulty target of roughly 127.48 trillion. Because Bitcoin’s consensus rules recalculate difficulty only after every 2,016 blocks, a chain retaining less than 1% of the original SHA-256d hashpower must endure extremely protracted block discovery times unless mining capacity dramatically scales up or difficulty rules are overridden.
MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor highlighted the mismatch in an analysis shared on social platform X, estimating that approximately 99.85% of global Bitcoin hashpower remained on the dominant chain. Saylor calculated that at roughly 0.15% allocated hashpower, the minority fork could theoretically require up to 25 years to complete the 2,016 blocks necessary to reach its first difficulty adjustment. While Saylor’s figures represent independent projections rather than protocol measurements, on-chain tracking confirmed zero signaling blocks out of the first 113 blocks mined on the main chain during period 477.
The Push to ‘Fire the Miners’ and Change Proof-of-Work
Confronted with structural paralysis, BIP-110 architects and core advocates have turned toward a radical alternative: changing the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm to decouple the minority chain from established SHA-256d ASIC mining infrastructure. Writing on August 9, Dathon Ohm publicly accused major mining pools of cartel behavior, alleging that industrial operations were transforming Bitcoin into a “toxic data dumping ground” and confirming that developers were evaluating alternative consensus algorithms to “fire the miners.”
Deliberations inside the Bitcoin Knots Discord server’s #strategic channel have focused on evaluating alternative mining mechanisms. Participants observed that existing SHA-256d application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) hardware grants dominant pools overwhelming leverage over consensus changes. Luke Dashjr voiced strong criticism of SHA-256d, citing historical vulnerabilities such as ASICBoost and asserting that the algorithm itself suffers from systemic concentration issues.
Discussions among contributors have spanned multiple cryptographic hashing algorithms, including RandomX, KT256, BLAKE3, variants of BLAKE2, Scrypt, and Autolykos v2, alongside general CPU and GPU mining models. However, developers acknowledge that each option presents distinct tradeoffs:
- Established ASIC Algorithms (e.g., Scrypt): Utilizing algorithms with existing hardware ecosystems like Litecoin’s Scrypt could rapidly attract functional hashpower, but leaves the network vulnerable to immediate takeover or 51% attacks by incumbent hardware operators.
- GPU/CPU or Novel Algorithms: Transitioning to memory-hard or CPU-friendly functions levels the playing field initially, but risks secondary hardware centralization once specialized manufacturing responds.
To mitigate early-mover advantages and secret ASIC development, Dashjr floated a proposal to assemble a pre-screened list of viable algorithm candidates and execute a final selection through a deterministic random process at the time of activation, arguing that unpredictable selection prevents manufacturers from secretly preparing specialized hardware ahead of launch.
Replay Risks and Institutional Resistance
While technical discussions continue online, the existence of a persistent split presents immediate practical risks for transaction processing. Bitcoin developer Kevin Loaec issued public warnings regarding transaction replay risks for holders retaining pre-fork coins. Because both chains share identical history prior to block 961,632 and lack built-in replay protection, transactions broadcast on the dominant network could be captured and replayed on the minority chain, potentially exposing funds if users attempt to move coins without prior splitting procedures.
Concurrently, the split has triggered severe political fallout within Bitcoin’s developer ecosystem. Mark Erhardt, a prominent Bitcoin engineer and researcher known as “Murch,” publicly disclosed on X that he recommended removing Luke Dashjr from the official BIP editors list, citing procedural friction and communication breakdowns. Dashjr rejected the motion, characterizing the accusations as unfounded and asserting that developer mailing lists had become institutionalized and captive to specific interests.
Governance Fallback and the Future of BIP-110
Experimental code for a proof-of-work algorithm transition already exists in public repositories. Developer Chris Guida rebased legacy PoW-change codebase—originally drafted by Dashjr during the 2017 block-size disputes—onto a modern Bitcoin Knots framework. The GitHub branch includes revised consensus parameters, mining validation logic, and reduced initial difficulty targets designed to permit rapid block generation upon activation.
As of late August 9, no algorithm modification has been formally activated, nor has an activation block height been established by Knots maintainers. Under standard BIP-110 specifications, mandatory signaling remains active on paper through block 963,647, with full enforcement slated for block 965,664. However, with the minority chain stalled indefinitely at block 961,633, the project’s survival depends entirely on whether proponents opt for a hard fork algorithm reset or accept the practical failure of the minority chain push.