BIP-110 Chain Split Exposes Bitcoin’s Miner Support Gap

Bitcoin’s BIP-110 soft fork triggered a real chain split at block 961,632 over the weekend, but the breakaway branch produced only two blocks in roughly eight hours while the dominant chain produced 48. The gap illustrates the limits of a consensus rule that lacks broad miner support.

The Split at Block 961,632

The mechanics were straightforward. AntPool mined a block at height 961,632 without the signal BIP-110 requires, and ordinary nodes accepted it while BIP-110-compatible nodes rejected it. A subsequent block from the OCEAN pool, conforming to the required bit-4 signal, gave the dissenting nodes a branch to follow. From that point, the two groups no longer agreed on which chain to follow.

According to reporting cited by Cointribune, the BIP-110 branch had produced only two blocks in its first eight hours against 48 on the main chain. By 11:40 UTC, a public BIP-110 monitor showed the main chain at block 961,725, 94 blocks into the period, with none of them signaling for the proposal.

A Fork Without Fuel

The minority branch retained Bitcoin’s full mining difficulty, calibrated for the entire network’s computing power, while attracting only a small share of that power. That left blocks hours apart rather than occurring at Bitcoin’s usual pace.

Cointribune’s pre-split tally put signaling at 51 of 2,016 blocks in the prior period, or 2.53%, while noting that this was a directional measure of miner positioning rather than a precise measure of committed computing power. Supplementary reporting from Decrypt noted that Bitcoin’s difficulty resets every 2,016 blocks and that a branch running at roughly 2.53% support could take about 350 days to reach its next adjustment, compared with about two weeks for the main chain. The figures point to a substantial difference in block production between the two chains.

Under BIP-110’s schedule, the branch needs to reach block 963,648 to lock in and block 965,664 to begin applying its restrictions for roughly 52,416 blocks, about a year at Bitcoin’s normal pace, according to the official BIP-110 text. That schedule is counted in blocks rather than calendar days, so slow block production pushes those milestones further out.

Governance Fight Shifts to Miners and Nodes

BIP-110 is a temporary soft fork aimed at limiting non-financial data, including inscriptions and similar payloads, from being stored on Bitcoin. Supporters framed it as a user-activated soft fork, a mechanism that lets node operators reject blocks the rest of the network still treats as valid, and cited the 2017 SegWit standoff as precedent.

The comparison has limits under the current numbers. In 2017, the threat of user rejection sat inside a broader balance of power involving miners, exchanges and node operators. In this case, the dominant chain continued without visible disruption while the dissenting branch struggled to produce blocks.

Supplementary reporting from Decrypt identified a practical issue for anyone holding coins on the minority branch: because both chains accept identical transaction formats, a sale executed on the BIP-110 chain can potentially be replayed on the main Bitcoin chain, handing a buyer BTC from the same seller. That replay exposure is a settlement risk for anyone using coins on the minority branch.

One more radical possible option would be to change the proof-of-work algorithm to open mining to different hardware, creating a lasting hard fork with separate infrastructure and security assumptions. Such a path would require miners and platforms willing to manage separate deposits, withdrawals and replay protection. The available data does not indicate that miners or platforms are committed to that route.

What Comes Next

The mandatory signaling window in the BIP-110 text runs through block 963,647, a mark the branch is not on pace to reach given its current output. Even if it eventually crosses that line, the lock-in and restriction phases at blocks 963,648 and 965,664 would move further out as the minority chain continues to produce blocks slowly.

For traders, the immediate point is what the split has not changed on the dominant chain: it has continued without visible disruption. Calling a two-block, eight-hour chain dead this early would overstate the case, but a branch confirming very few transactions currently has neither the throughput nor the economic weight of a competing version of Bitcoin. Without a shift in miner signaling, the gap in block production remains.

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