Bitcoin News

Story: BIP-110 Bitcoin Fork Stuck at Two Blocks as Hashpower Stays Away

By Pankaj K

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Mining Support Is Almost Nonexistent. The numbers are pretty brutal. Out of the previous 2,016 blocks, only 51 have signaled in favor of…

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Saylor and Back Both Have Problems With It. It's not just miners staying away. Some of Bitcoin's loudest voices have gone on record against…

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Why the Gap Keeps Widening. The mechanics here matter. BIP-110 nodes are built to reject any block that doesn't signal using…

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The enforcing branch is basically dead in the water. BIP-110's mandatory signaling kicked in at block 961,632 on Saturday, and since then the fork has managed to produce exactly…

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As of Sunday, the BIP-110-enforcing chain sits at block 961,633. The non-enforcing chain, meanwhile, has raced ahead to block 961,721. That's an 88-block gap, and it's growing.

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The only miner actually working on the enforcing branch is a pseudonymous group called Roughnecks.

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The BIP-110 proposal keeps mandatory signaling active through block 963,647. That's a long runway still ahead.

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It's not just miners staying away. Some of Bitcoin's loudest voices have gone on record against BIP-110, though not always for the same reasons.

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Michael Saylor, strategy executive chairman, says he's aligned with what BIP-110 is trying to accomplish — but he thinks the approach is wrong.

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Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, went further. Back said the consensus changes in BIP-110 could damage Bitcoin's credibility outright.

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Related: BIP-110 Bitcoin Fork Dead After Two Blocks as Mining Support Hits 2.53%

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So you've got two high-profile figures, both skeptical, for different but overlapping reasons.

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That's the core problem. The enforcing branch faces full mining difficulty with almost no hashpower behind it.

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The gap between the two chains started the moment mandatory signaling began at block 961,632. It's been widening ever since.

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Miners are essentially being asked to make a resource decision — point computing power at a chain that's going nowhere, or keep working on the chain that's already at block…

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