Bitcoin Fork with BLAKE2b Locks Out Existing Miners in September

A new Bitcoin fork is planned for September 1, 2026, which will change the hashing algorithm used to produce blocks from SHA-256d to BLAKE2b. This means that existing mining machines will be unable to mine on the new chain.

The fork is being led by supporters of the Bitcoin Knots software, a variant of the Bitcoin Core software with stricter rules. The driving figure behind the project is developer Luke Dashjr, who serves as chief technology officer at Ocean Mining.

According to the project documentation, addresses, keys, and coins will remain the same after the fork, and holders do not need to move their bitcoin before September 1. However, wallet providers may decide whether to support the new chain or not.

The switch to BLAKE2b is intended to take block production away from large mining operations, but it also creates a risk of a low-hash-power chain that could be vulnerable to rewriting its history.