Michael Saylor · Bitcoin · Decrypt
Bitcoin 'Anti-Spam' Fork Sputters to a Halt After Mining Just Two Blocks
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The long-simmering fight over a controversial Bitcoin network proposal finally produced a chain split over the weekend, but the breakaway Bitcoin fork sputtered almost immediately, grinding out two blocks in roughly eight hours before stalling out.
Key facts
- Bitcoin only recalibrates its mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks, and the breakaway chain inherited the network's current setting while commanding a sliver of its computing power—about 2.53%
- The fork triggered Saturday at block 961,632, when Bitcoin nodes running BIP-110 software began rejecting any block that failed to signal support for the proposal
- The BIP-110 branch mined only two blocks and is already more than 80 blocks behind
- The fork came because of a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal known as BIP-110, whose supporters claimed would protect the network from unwanted spam and the legal liability that comes from hosting
Summary
Supporters of BIP-110 split off into a minority Bitcoin chain on Saturday at block 961,632, but it mined only two blocks in about eight hours before stalling, falling dozens of blocks behind the main network. The fork inherited Bitcoin's difficulty setting with barely any hashpower—about 2.53% of recent blocks signaled support, far below the 55% activation threshold,. BIP-110 sought to temporarily block non-financial data like Ordinals inscriptions from transactions, a move critics including Michael Saylor call a dangerous precedent. The fork came because of a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal known as BIP-110, whose supporters claimed would protect the network from unwanted spam and the legal liability that comes from hosting non-financial data on the network.