Bitcoin Soft Forks Stuck in Neutral

Bitcoin's ability to activate soft forks has come under scrutiny after the recent failure of BIP-110, a proposed temporary soft fork that aimed to restrict non-financial data stored in Bitcoin transactions. According to Paul Sztorc, creator of the Drivechain proposal, this is not an isolated incident and all soft forks since Taproot have failed to activate.

The proposal drew only 2.53% miner support before its enforcing branch stalled after two blocks. Sztorc emphasized that the issue lies in Bitcoin's consensus process, which has become increasingly difficult for developers to secure support for changes. He noted that BIP-110 was not an exception and pointed to the lack of activation for other proposed soft forks since Taproot.

Taproot activated at block 709,632 on November 14, 2021, after miners used the Speedy Trial process to signal readiness. However, proposals seeking to add features or change Bitcoin's scripting rules have remained under discussion without activation. Sztorc cited OP_CAT as an example of a small code change that has attracted support from developers but remains stuck due to the resistance to consensus changes.

Drivechains, proposed by Sztorc, aim to move experimentation away from Bitcoin's base layer and allow developers to test different rules and applications on opt-in sidechains. However, BIP 300 itself needs a consensus change on Bitcoin, which is currently unachievable according to Sztorc.