preferred on
Points of Focus
- BIP-110’s minority Bitcoin branch stopped after blocks 961,632 and 961,633.
- Miner signaling peaked at 2.6%, far below the 55% threshold for miner-triggered lock-in.
- Simple Mining used Ocean’s DATUM protocol to mine block 961,634 without signaling for BIP-110.
Bitcoin’s BIP-110 fork has stalled after producing just two blocks, showing how little mining power followed the attempt to restrict arbitrary data on the network. The split began at block 961,632, when BIP-110 nodes entered the mandatory-signaling window and started rejecting blocks that didn’t carry the required signal. The minority branch advanced only through block 961,633 before stopping, while BIP-110’s website now provides instructions for users who want to switch back to the higher-work Bitcoin chain.
BIP-110 fork exposes gap between signaling and hashpower
BIP-110, authored by Dathon Ohm, temporarily restricts several methods used to place arbitrary data in Bitcoin transactions. Its specification caps most new scriptPubKeys at 34 bytes, allows up to 83 bytes for OP_RETURN and limits several data pushes and witness items to 256 bytes. The rules are designed to remain active for roughly one year after activation.
The proposal used a 55% miner-signaling threshold for early lock-in, but deployment did not depend on reaching that level. Under its modified BIP9 design, blocks 961,632 through 963,647 must signal bit 4 or BIP-110 nodes will reject them. This allowed participating nodes to enforce the mandatory-signaling rules without majority miner backing, while the minority chain still depended on miners willing to build blocks under those rules. Once the split began, that limited mining support became the main constraint on block production.
Simple Mining said support had peaked at 2.6% when it mined block 961,634 on the established chain using Ocean’s DATUM protocol. Ocean says DATUM lets individual miners construct their own block templates rather than leaving template selection entirely to the pool.
We mined block 961,634 using Ocean's DATUM protocol.
The block didn't signal support for BIP-110.
Support peaked at 2.6% while the proposal needed 55%.
Hashrate is a vote you cannot fake, and we decided the proposal wasn't worth following.
Ocean's DATUM protocol gave us the… https://t.co/YVUeHr2oJ4 pic.twitter.com/wYYq20dsam
— Simple Mining (@simpleminingio) August 9, 2026
Two-block stall sharpens Bitcoin governance dispute
Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said about 99.85% of hashpower remained with the established Bitcoin chain and pointed to the two-block branch as evidence that miners were free to reject the proposal. BIP-110 author Dathon Ohm challenged the outcome, accusing large pools of coordinating against the fork and raising a possible future proof-of-work change.
Bitcoin worked exactly as designed. BIP-110 was free to fork, and the network was free not to follow. The result was decisive: about 99.85% of Bitcoin's hashpower stayed with Bitcoin. The BIP-110 branch mined only two blocks and is already more than 80 blocks behind.
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) August 9, 2026
The two sides are measuring different parts of the same outcome. BIP-110 did not require 55% miner support to reach its mandatory-signaling phase, but nodes enforcing those rules could only reject non-signaling blocks, not mine replacements. With little hashpower extending the minority branch, block production stopped at 961,633. The mandatory-signaling window runs through block 963,647.
Share
Most read articles
