Full story
Fork Freezes After Two
Bitcoin’s BIP-110 fork began at block 961,632 after nodes enforcing the proposal started rejecting blocks that did not signal support through version bit 4, and the enforcing branch generated only blocks 961,632 and 961,633 before effectively stalling.
“the enforcing branch generated only blocks 961,632 and 961,633 before effectively stalling”
The split was triggered when mandatory signaling for BIP-110 began on August 8 at block 961,632, with BIP-110 nodes rejecting non-signaling blocks while standard Bitcoin nodes continued accepting valid proof-of-work blocks regardless of that signal.
Bloomingbit reported that by August 9 the BIP-110 chain stopped progressing at block 961,633 while the non-enforcing chain reached block 961,721, widening the gap to 88 blocks.
The same reporting tied the stall to the difficulty adjustment mechanism, saying the BIP-110 chain must mine the entire current 2,016-block adjustment period through block 963,647 to receive a difficulty adjustment.
In the background of the stall, the previous 2,016-block period saw only 51 blocks signal support for BIP-110, equal to 2.53% and far below the proposal’s 55% threshold.
Saylor and Back Warn
As the fork widened, Michael Saylor argued that BIP-110 could threaten Bitcoin’s neutral rules, consensus structure and reliability, while Adam Back said changes at the consensus level could undermine Bitcoin’s reliability and permanently make some unspent transaction outputs unusable.
Bloomingbit said the split was triggered on August 8 at block 961,632 when mandatory signaling for BIP-110 began, and it described the enforcing rule as rejecting blocks that do not signal through version bit 4 while the main chain accepted blocks regardless of signaling.
Crypto News reported that the enforcing branch remained frozen at block 961,633 while the dominant chain advanced through block 961,744, and it said current-period signaling stood at zero among 113 main-chain blocks mined since mandatory signaling began Saturday.
The same outlet also said OCEAN reported 257 PH/s on its BIP-110 endpoint with no new block for 17 hours, while Roughnecks mined both BIP-110 blocks using OCEAN’s DATUM system at Bitcoin’s 127.48 trillion difficulty level.
In parallel, MEXC framed the enforcement as a rule split rather than a completed upgrade, saying the start of mandatory signaling did not activate BIP-110’s proposed transaction restrictions and only introduced a rule under which enforcing nodes would reject blocks that failed to signal support.
What’s at Risk Next
The immediate stakes described by the sources center on whether the minority chain can reach the next stages of the BIP-110 timeline, because MEXC said the mandatory window covers blocks 961,632 through 963,647 and the enforcing branch would need to reach block 963,648 and satisfy required conditions before entering LOCKED_IN.
“the stalled branch also creates practical risks because transactions may be valid on both chains”
MEXC further stated that restrictions would not become ACTIVE until block 965,664, and it warned that the stalled branch creates practical risks because transactions may be valid on both chains without reliable replay protection.
Crypto News said the stall offers the clearest test yet of how much mining support BIP-110 has attracted, and it reported that the monitor had recorded zero signaling blocks among the first 113 blocks on the dominant chain after the mandatory window started at block 961,632.
AltcoinBuzz described the fork as creating potential replay-attack risks and said the minority chain inherited Bitcoin’s existing mining difficulty while receiving only a very small share of the network’s total hash power, making confirmations impractical.
In the same vein, MEXC said the minority branch inherited Bitcoin’s existing mining difficulty while receiving only a small fraction of its hash rate, so it could not maintain Bitcoin’s approximate 10-minute block interval, leaving the fork far from operational competitiveness.
