The Bitcoin fork created by BIP-110 supporters has effectively stalled, according to reporting by CoinDesk. The breakaway chain produced only two blocks in roughly eight hours after splitting from Bitcoin on Saturday, while the main network advanced by 48 blocks—nearly a full day’s worth of activity.

The fork exposed a fundamental problem: a minority chain cannot survive when it inherits Bitcoin’s mining difficulty but lacks the hashpower to sustain it. With only 2.53% of recent mining support, the BIP-110 fork now faces blocks arriving hours apart instead of every ten minutes, making it economically unviable and technically cumbersome for anyone holding fork coins.

The Difficulty Trap

Bitcoin’s mining algorithm recalculates difficulty every 2,016 blocks to maintain consistent block times. The BIP-110 fork inherited Bitcoin’s current difficulty setting but with a fraction of the computing power. The result is brutal mathematics: the breakaway chain won’t reach the next difficulty adjustment for roughly 350 days, versus 14 days on Bitcoin proper.

This creates a vicious cycle. Slow blocks discourage miners from participating. No additional miners means no faster blocks. The two-week signaling window for BIP-110 activation runs through block 963,647—a target the fork chain will almost certainly miss at its current pace.

What BIP-110 Actually Proposes

BIP-110 would temporarily ban storing non-financial data—images, text, and other metadata—inside Bitcoin transactions for one year. Supporters argue this reduces network congestion and lowers transaction fees for actual payments. Critics contend that anyone paying the transaction fee has purchased the right to use block space however they choose, and that miners should not act as arbiters of legitimate use.

The proposal never gained meaningful consensus. Only 2.53% of blocks signaled support over the two weeks preceding the fork, far short of the 55% threshold needed for activation without a split. Major mining pools AntPool and Ocean split their hash, with AntPool mining the first non-signaling block that the main network accepted—and BIP-110 nodes rejected.

The Replay Risk Problem

Users holding fork coins face an unusual hazard. Because both chains accept identical transactions, a signed transaction sending BIP-110 coins also works on Bitcoin’s main chain. A buyer could rebroadcast that same transaction and claim the Bitcoin version of those coins from the same seller—a novel replay-style attack that undermines any trading opportunity.

The slow block times compound this problem. Confirming a transaction on the BIP-110 chain takes hours, making any trade worse than inefficient.

Why This Matters

The BIP-110 fork illustrates why Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism depends on overwhelming hashpower alignment. A split with minority support doesn’t create a viable alternative—it creates a zombie chain. Users cannot safely exit their position. Miners have no incentive to participate. The technical rules of the protocol turn the entire fork into a cautionary tale about the limits of minority activism in a proof-of-work system.

Bitcoin’s block production continued uninterrupted on the main chain, demonstrating the stability that comes with concentrated hashpower consensus.