Following an attempt to activate BIP-110, supporters of BIP-110 split from Bitcoin on Saturday to create a new minority chain. The fork occurred at block 961,632 when BIP-110 signaling began; the breakaway chain reached block 961,633 while the main Bitcoin chain advanced to block 961,681, leaving a 48-block gap between the chains. The fork produced two blocks and then stopped, leaving the minority chain stalled with only those two mined blocks.
The fork began at block 961,632 when signaling for BIP-110 started, and supporters split to create a new minority Bitcoin chain. The breakaway chain produced two blocks roughly eight hours after going live. After those two blocks, block production on the fork halted and the minority chain stopped advancing. The immediate outcome was a short-lived parallel chain with minimal ongoing mining.
The forked chain currently sits at block 961,633 while the main Bitcoin chain advanced to block 961,681, creating a 48-block divergence. A block is mined roughly every ten minutes, and that 48-block gap corresponds to almost a day of activity on the main chain and almost none on the fork. The disparity in block production produced a visible split in chain height within hours of the signaling event. Reporting on the incident referenced the BIP-110 temporary cap in covering the split.
This account records the block production timeline and the immediate chain split without delving into protocol-level mechanisms. It documents a two-block minority chain that stalled shortly after creation.
The fork inherited Bitcoin’s mining difficulty while running with only a tiny share of the total hashpower. The stall is due to this mismatch, and the breakaway chain produced two blocks roughly eight hours after going live before block production halted. Block production on the fork slowed, with blocks arriving every several hours and confirmations delayed. The fork’s block height is 961,633 while the main Bitcoin chain advanced to 961,681, creating a 48-block divergence.
Mining difficulty is recalculated every 2,016 blocks to maintain roughly ten-minute block intervals. Because of the recalculation schedule and the fork’s low hashpower, the fork’s mining difficulty will require about 350 days to adjust compared with about 14 days for the main Bitcoin chain. Those parameters are cited as the reasons the minority chain stalled after two blocks.
Only 2.53% of blocks signaled support for BIP-110 in the two weeks prior, well below the 55% threshold needed to activate the proposal without a split. AntPool mined the first non-signaling block and Ocean produced the alternative fork block. Signed transactions that send coins on the fork chain can be rebroadcast on Bitcoin and exchanged for real BTC, creating potential attack vectors. The 55% threshold is the level needed to activate without a split.
The two-week signaling window runs to block 963,647. At the current pace the fork will not reach that window. The breakaway chain produced two blocks and then halted, leaving minimal block production on the fork. The fork chain is slow to confirm transactions because blocks on the fork have arrived every several hours.
A new minority chain was created when BIP-110 supporters split from Bitcoin, and the breakaway chain produced two blocks before stalling. The fork inherited Bitcoin’s mining difficulty while operating with only a tiny share of hashpower, and only 2.53% of blocks signaled for BIP-110 in the two weeks prior versus the 55% needed to activate without a split.
The fork is slow to confirm transactions, with blocks arriving every several hours, and the two-week signaling window runs to block 963,647, which the fork is unlikely to reach at the current pace.
