BIP-110 Fork Revived: Bitcoin Split Continues as Developers Pursue Smaller Blocks
The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-110 fork has been restarted after it stalled in early August. The minority network, which was born from a split at block 961,632 when nodes enforcing BIP-110 began rejecting blocks without support for tighter data limits, had managed to mine only a handful of blocks before stalling.
However, this past weekend, backers revived the project and have now mined over 800 blocks on the revived branch. The developers changed the proof-of-work function from SHA-256d to Blake2b, aiming to sidestep specialized ASIC hardware that dominates Bitcoin mining and allow ordinary computers to participate.
The maximum block size was cut to 300 KB, significantly lower than Bitcoin's base limit of 1 MB and weight limit of 4 MB. The first block under the new rules was mined by Silent Wave at height 961,640.
Supporters of BIP-110 argue that Bitcoin should remain focused on payments rather than serving as a general-purpose storage solution. They believe that forcing data limits through a minority fork is necessary to maintain the integrity of the network and prevent abuse.