Bitcoin BIP-110 Fork Sparks Controversy Over Governance vs Attack

David Schwartz, Ripple's CTO emeritus, has weighed in on the recent Bitcoin BIP-110 fork. The new chain replaced SHA256d with BLAKE2b as its mining algorithm and introduced a redesigned block header.

Schwartz argued that supporters of the new chain crossed from governance into an attack after rejecting the soft-fork result and continuing on a separate proof-of-work chain. He stated that losing a consensus fight does not justify creating a new Bitcoin chain, but rather amounts to attacking the network.

Supporters of the new chain, such as Luke Dashjr, defended their decision, citing the benefits of BLAKE2b, including its lack of ASICBoost weaknesses and its redesigned block header, which closes a block-withholding loophole.