BTC fork branch stalls as miners boycott

TLDR

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly split into a BIP-110 fork, but the enforcing branch has effectively stalled after miners overwhelmingly refused to signal support.

1. A minority BIP-110 chain mined only two blocks before stalling, while over 97 percent of hashpower stayed with the main Bitcoin chain.
2. The boycott reflects deep opposition to BIP-110s attempt to restrict non-financial data, with main-chain users largely unaffected so far.
3. Next, the BIP-110 branch likely fades unless backers push a new proof-of-work, keeping the broader censorship and data-on-Bitcoin debate alive.

Deep Dive

1. Fork Stalls After Two Blocks

BIP-110 enforcement began at block 961,632, creating a split when nodes running the new rules rejected a non-signaling block that the main network accepted. A BIP-110 miner on OCEAN produced an alternative block, and the minority chain then mined one more successor before stalling at block 961,633, leaving it dozens of blocks behind the dominant chain as Bitcoin continued to produce blocks roughly every 10 minutes.Bitcoin split into two chains overnight

Only 51 of the previous 2,016 blocks had signaled for BIP-110, about 2.53 percent, far below the 55 percent threshold needed to lock in the change, and no blocks on the main chain signaled once mandatory signaling began.Bitcoin BIP-110 split widens as fork freezes

2. Why Miners Boycotted

BIP-110 is a reduced data temporary soft fork that would sharply limit certain transaction structures and non-financial payloads, targeting things like Ordinals and large embedded data.BIP-110 branch stalls after two blocks Supporters argue this protects Bitcoin from spam and legal risk. Critics see it as censorship and a threat to Bitcoins neutrality.

Major pools including Foundry, F2Pool, AntPool and others kept mining non-signaling blocks, and estimates suggest over 99 percent of hashpower rejected the fork.Bitcoin BIP-110 enters mandatory phase For everyday users who ignore the minority chain, transactions and balances on the main chain are unaffected, though in theory replay risks exist for anyone trying to treat fork coins as separate assets.

3. What To Watch Next

With the BIP-110 chain stuck at two blocks and inheriting full Bitcoin difficulty, producing more blocks would take implausibly long without fresh hashpower. Some backers are already discussing changing the forks proof-of-work algorithm to fire the miners and escape dependence on Bitcoin ASICs, considering alternatives like RandomX or Scrypt.BIP-110 backers plot minority chains PoW reset

No such change is activated, experimental code is still debated, and major exchanges have not embraced the minority chain. The more likely outcome is that BIP-110 lives on as a lesson in how hard it is to alter Bitcoins rules without overwhelming miner and user support.

Conclusion

The stalled BIP-110 fork shows that even technically valid soft forks can fail when miners and the wider ecosystem do not buy in, reinforcing Bitcoins de facto veto power against perceived censorship. For BTC holders, the main chain continues unaffected, while the episode underscores that any future attempts to reshape Bitcoins data policies will need far broader consensus to gain traction.