Key Points The chain enforcing BIP-110 remains stuck at block 961,633 as Bitcoin’s primary chain advanced to block 961,744, creating a 111-block difference During the preceding period, merely
The BIP-110 implementation on Bitcoin’s network has come to a standstill following the creation of merely two blocks. This enforcement branch has remained frozen at block 961,633 since Saturday, even as Bitcoin’s primary blockchain progressed without interruption.
Bitcoin worked exactly as designed. BIP-110 was free to fork, and the network was free not to follow. The result was decisive: about 99.85% of Bitcoin's hashpower stayed with Bitcoin. The BIP-110 branch mined only two blocks and is already more than 80 blocks behind.
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) August 9, 2026
By Sunday afternoon, the divergence between both chains expanded to 111 blocks, increasing from 88 blocks recorded earlier that day. The BIP-110 chain has failed to generate any additional blocks for approximately 17 hours.
This split occurred when BIP-110 transitioned into its enforcement signaling stage at block 961,632 on August 8. Network nodes implementing this proposal started rejecting blocks lacking support signals through version bit 4.
An anonymous mining collective identifying as Roughnecks generated both blocks supporting BIP-110 through Ocean’s DATUM mining infrastructure. Despite Ocean’s BIP-110 endpoint displaying approximately 257 PH/s of computational power, no subsequent block has emerged.
The proposal attracted minimal backing before enforcement commenced. During the preceding difficulty period of 2,016 blocks, only 51 signaled BIP-110 support, totaling 2.53%. Following the enforcement window’s activation, the dominant chain has produced 113 blocks without a single one signaling support.
The fundamental challenge stems from Bitcoin’s difficulty recalibration mechanism. When the split occurred, the BIP-110 branch inherited identical mining difficulty parameters as the main chain, presently configured at 127.48 trillion. With minimal computational resources allocated to the enforcement branch, discovering new blocks requires substantially longer than Bitcoin’s target ten-minute timeframe.
Difficulty recalibration occurs exclusively after completing a complete 2,016-block cycle. Given that the BIP-110 branch has generated only two blocks in its current cycle, approximately 2,000 additional blocks must be mined before any difficulty reduction materializes.
Strategy’s executive chairman Michael Saylor shared on X that roughly 99.85% of Bitcoin’s computational power continued supporting the main chain. His calculations suggest that with 0.15% of Bitcoin’s hash rate, the fork might need around 25 years to complete its first difficulty adjustment. These figures represent Saylor’s personal estimates.
Saylor had earlier expressed alignment with BIP-110’s objectives while opposing its execution approach, contending it jeopardized Bitcoin’s neutral consensus framework. Blockstream’s CEO Adam Back cautioned that this modification could undermine Bitcoin’s reliability and potentially render certain transaction outputs unusable.
Proponents of BIP-110, including Luke Dashjr who maintains Bitcoin Knots, contend the fork serves a critical purpose in restricting non-financial data storage within Bitcoin blocks.
An additional practical challenge exists for individuals holding Bitcoin from before the split occurred. BIP-110 lacks integrated replay protection mechanisms. Bitcoin developer Kevin Loaec cautioned that transferring coins on the minority fork without first isolating balances could inadvertently expose identical coins on the primary chain.
Enforcement signaling persists until block 963,647 according to the BIP-110 schedule. The proposal’s design calls for entering a locked-in phase at block 963,648, with activation following one difficulty cycle later. While these benchmarks remain achievable for the main chain, they appear distant for the stagnant BIP-110 branch.
Project-affiliated developers have also prepared backup code for a possible proof-of-work algorithm modification. No implementation timeline has been announced.
As of Sunday afternoon, the BIP-110 branch remained without a third block, while the primary chain’s new difficulty period showed zero blocks signaling support.
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