BIP-110 Breakaway Chain Stalls with Meager Support
A breakaway Bitcoin chain launched over the weekend in support of BIP-110, but it stalled after mining just two blocks in about eight hours. The fork started at block 961,632 and was backed by only 2.53% of recent blocks, far below the 55% threshold needed to activate the change.
Supporters argue that BIP-110 is necessary to prevent clogging of the network with non-financial data, such as Ordinals inscriptions. However, critics see it as a threat to censorship resistance and argue that users should have control over how they use their block space.
Michael Saylor and Jameson Lopp both publicly criticized the fork and its supporters, with Saylor stating that 'about 99.85% of Bitcoin's hashpower stayed with Bitcoin' and Lopp warning against welcoming back those who backed BIP-110.
The breakaway chain inherited Bitcoin's difficulty setting and would need roughly 350 days to reach its next adjustment, leaving its blocks arriving hours apart instead of minutes.