The fork chain that split from the main Bitcoin blockchain stalled after producing only two blocks. Due to inheriting the same mining difficulty while lacking market value from token rewards, miners lack the incentive to continue mining on this chain. As of Monday, the fork chain remains at block 961633, while the main Bitcoin chain has advanced to block 961959, creating a gap of 326 blocks behind.
This fork originated from the BIP-110 proposal, which aimed to prohibit users from storing images, text, and other non-payment data in Bitcoin transactions for a one-year period. Changing Bitcoin rules requires miner approval, with miners signaling support by marking the blocks they produce. BIP-110 needed to achieve 55% block support within two weeks, but its peak support rate was only about 2.6%. Despite this, the proposal included a second enforcement path: starting from block 961632, computers running BIP-110 software began rejecting all blocks that did not carry this marker, regardless of the collective miner choice. Since almost no blocks carried the marker, these computers rejected the main chain built by the vast majority of hashing power, following instead the minority branch composed solely of marked blocks.
The Bitcoin ledger consists of a chain of blocks, each containing a batch of transactions, produced by miners using specialized computers in a competitive process. Miners receive newly issued Bitcoin and transaction fees as rewards, with block intervals of approximately ten minutes. This speed is maintained by the network's difficulty adjustment mechanism, which recalculates difficulty every 2,016 blocks, increasing it when blocks are produced too quickly and decreasing it when too slowly. The fork chain inherited the same difficulty value as the main chain, but its tokens have no market, no exchange listings, no buyers, while mining costs remain equivalent to Bitcoin's, directly causing the stall. The chain also cannot automatically adjust difficulty without completing the current difficulty's 2,016 blocks.
Real-time monitoring shows that, based on the current block production rate, the fork chain's difficulty adjustment is expected to take 6.3 years to complete, further extending from Sunday's estimate of 350 days. The main Bitcoin chain's next difficulty adjustment is expected in 12 days. Some market observers remain cautious. Himanshu Sahai, co-founder of Arch, stated that it is too early to draw conclusions from the initial block production, as Bitcoin rule changes rely on coordination among miners, developers, and the broader ecosystem. While the gap is noteworthy, describing it as a failure at this stage requires careful consideration.
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