BIP-110 Fork Collapses After Mining Just Two Blocks as Nearly All of Bitcoin’s Hashpower Stays on the Main Chain
At block 961,632 on August 9, 2026, BIP-110’s mandatory signaling window activated. AntPool produced the first block in the window without signaling support. Nodes enforcing BIP-110 rejected it. A miner using Ocean’s DATUM system then produced an alternative signaling block at the same height, creating a chain split. The minority chain added one more block at 961,633, then stopped.
In eight hours, the BIP-110 chain produced two blocks. The main Bitcoin chain produced 48. By Sunday afternoon, the gap had widened to over 111 blocks, with the minority chain still frozen at 961,633 and zero signaling blocks recorded in the new difficulty period on the main chain. The fork inherited Bitcoin’s full mining difficulty of 127.48 trillion, meaning the next difficulty adjustment on the minority chain is approximately 350 days away at its current pace. For all practical purposes, the chain is stalled.
The Community's Verdict Was Decisive
The numbers confirmed what the data had been signaling for weeks. Only 51 of the 2,016 blocks in the previous difficulty period signaled for BIP-110, equal to 2.53% of hashpower. Once the mandatory window opened, that number dropped to zero on the main chain. No major mining pool including Foundry USA, AntPool, ViaBTC, or F2Pool signaled support. Ocean Pool, which hosted the two minority chain blocks, has since returned its default stratum endpoint to the non-BIP-110 chain and announced 0.3 BTC in rebates for miners whose hashrate was briefly directed to the minority chain during an 18-hour configuration issue.
Strategy chairman Michael Saylor described the outcome as Bitcoin working exactly as designed: BIP-110 was free to fork, and the network was free not to follow, with 99.85% of hashpower staying with Bitcoin. Jameson Lopp went further, saying he would not be welcoming back or unblocking any BIP-110 supporters, accusing the movement of susceptibility to propaganda and harassment of people who have devoted their lives to improving Bitcoin.
What Comes Next
Despite the collapse, BIP-110’s most prominent supporters are not conceding. Author Dathon Ohm accused large mining pools of colluding to “turn Bitcoin from money into a toxic data dumping ground” and announced the community is now working on a proposal to change Bitcoin’s proof-of-work algorithm entirely, with the stated goal of removing the current miners from the equation. Developer Luke Dashjr has suggested September 1 as a potential target date for the proof-of-work change, saying it should coincide with when BIP-110 “would have activated.”
On the other side, prominent BIP-110 supporter hodlonaut posted a lengthy reflection accepting the outcome but framing it as evidence that miners and the corporate layer now control Bitcoin. “In my opinion, and in my heart, legacy Bitcoin is not what I signed up for. Captured. Centralized. Led by suits,” he wrote, adding that the fire that originally drew him to Bitcoin is now alive only in the node runners who supported BIP-110. Separately, Bitcoin Core contributor Murch recommended the removal of Luke Dashjr from the BIP Editors list, citing conflict-of-interest concerns and his championing of a contentious soft fork that has now produced a hard fork.