Bitcoin's BIP-110 soft fork, which required 55% miner signaling, stalled after just two blocks at height 961,633. The minority chain holds about 0.15% of the network's hashpower, and backers are now proposing a proof-of-work change to bypass mining pools they accuse of colluding against the fork.
Why miners said no
Signaling peaked at only a few percentage points during the deployment window, far short of the 55% threshold. None of the first 59 blocks on the dominant chain signaled for BIP-110, a clear sign of overwhelming rejection. The fork's author, Dathon Ohm, and developer Luke Dashjr are among those pushing the proposal.
Supporters' workaround
The pseudonymous mining group Roughnecks mined the first two blocks of the minority chain and said they would resume mining from block 961,633 to keep the chain alive until a "sensible POW change" is implemented. That change would bypass existing mining pools, which supporters accuse of colluding against the fork. Roughnecks also described Bitcoin Knots-RDTS as Bitcoin's reference client, a claim BIP-110 opponents reject.
Editorial fight over Dashjr
BIP editor Mark "Murch" Erhardt proposed removing Dashjr from the BIP editorial team, citing process violations such as assigning a proposal number before mailing-list discussion and merging updates too quickly. Several developers, including Matt Corallo, Olaoluwa Osuntokun, Jonas Nick, and Antoine Riard, supported or seconded the removal, though Riard noted there is no clear procedure for forcible removal.
Reaction
David Bailey, CEO of Nakamoto, called BIP-110 the "least popular and most inconsequential soft fork ever attempted." The proposal remains open as GitHub pull request 2248 as of Monday. Michael Saylor estimated it could take roughly 25 years for the minority chain to mine the 2,016 blocks needed for a difficulty adjustment, given its tiny share of hashpower.
The next concrete step is the proposed proof-of-work change, which has no formal timeline. The question of Dashjr's editorial role also remains unresolved, with no clear procedure for removal.
