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Bitcoin’s BIP-110 fork is 300 blocks behind BTC and six years from fixing itself
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- DeepHorus
Bitcoin’s BIP-110 fork has effectively stalled, producing only two blocks since splitting from the main network on Saturday, leaving it 326 blocks behind and more than six years away from a self-correction mechanism. The breakaway chain remains stuck at block 961,633, while Bitcoin’s main chain has advanced to block 961,959. The fork’s difficulty adjustment, originally estimated at 350 days, has now stretched to 6.3 years as the chain idles.
The split stems from BIP-110, a proposed rule change aimed at preventing users from storing non-payment data like pictures and text in Bitcoin transactions for one year. To activate, BIP-110 required 55% of blocks produced over a two-week period to carry its signal, but it peaked at just 2.6%. Despite the lack of support, the proposal contained a fallback trigger: starting at block 961,632, software running BIP-110 began rejecting every block without the required mark, effectively creating a minority chain that only blocks carrying the signal could join.
Bitcoin’s ledger relies on miners, who operate vast computing facilities to produce new blocks roughly every ten minutes. The network adjusts mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks to maintain this pace, but the forked chain inherited Bitcoin’s high difficulty at the split, making mining expensive while its coin holds no market value or exchange listing. With no financial incentive, almost no miners have supported the alternate chain, and it produced only two blocks before grinding to a halt.
Without completing 2,016 blocks, the fork cannot lower its difficulty, creating a Catch-22 that may persist for years. A live monitor now estimates the next adjustment is 6.3 years away, and every idle hour pushes that estimate further out. Bitcoin’s main chain, by contrast, is due for its next adjustment in 12 days.
Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, called the experiment a collapse, stating that it underscores how Bitcoin’s security and progress depend on the overwhelming majority of hashpower. He argued that contentious rule changes without broad miner and economic support are destined to stall as minority forks, leaving the main network unaffected. However, not all observers agree that the fork is finished.
Himanshu Sahay, co-founder of Arch, told CoinDesk it is still too early to draw firm conclusions. He emphasized that Bitcoin rule changes require coordination across miners, developers, and the wider ecosystem, and that the block gap, while noteworthy, is not yet definitive. The coming weeks will reveal whether the fork can attract any support or remains a permanent footnote in Bitcoin’s scaling debate.
