Key facts
- The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-110, designed to temporarily cap arbitrary data in transactions, has stalled.
- The fork entered its mandatory signaling window at block 961,632 and managed to mine only two blocks before halting.
- The breakaway chain commands a negligible share of hashpower, estimated at approximately 2.6%, far below the 55% activation threshold.
- Michael Saylor noted that 99.85% of Bitcoin's hash power remained with the main network.
- Mining company Ocean stated it would reimburse affected miners.
The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-110, intended to temporarily restrict non-financial data like Ordinals inscriptions from transactions, has stalled after mining only two blocks. The proposed fork initiated on Saturday at block 961,632 when its mandatory signaling window opened. Nodes running BIP-110 software rejected blocks that did not signal support, leading to a chain split. However, the breakaway chain, supported by a negligible share of hashpower, could not maintain block production.
Roughly 2.53% of blocks in the preceding difficulty period signaled support for BIP-110, far below the 55% threshold required for voluntary lock-in. Since the mandatory window opened, none of the first 113 blocks on the dominant chain have signaled. The fork inherited the main chain's difficulty, but with its minimal hashpower, it faces extremely long block times, estimated to take under a year to decades to complete a full 2,016-block difficulty adjustment period.
Michael Saylor and Adam Back publicly opposed BIP-110, not for its goal of limiting transaction data, but for its activation method, which they argued invited this outcome. Saylor stated that Bitcoin functioned as designed, with 99.85% of hashpower remaining on the main chain. Ocean, a mining company whose team supported the proposal, informed clients that some miners using its DATUM protocol templates might have unknowingly directed their hashrate to the BIP-110 chain and will be reimbursed.