Bitcoin Update That Miners Ignored Freezes After Just Two Blocks

A proposed Bitcoin change split off into its own tiny chain but stalled almost instantly when nearly all miners refused to join it.

A big Bitcoin experiment fizzled out this weekend almost as soon as it started. A proposed rule change called BIP-110 created its own separate version of Bitcoin's record-keeping system — but then got stuck after only two entries.

First, some basics. Bitcoin runs on a blockchain (a shared digital ledger that records every transaction in linked "blocks"). New blocks are added by miners (computers that compete to process transactions and earn rewards). Sometimes the network splits into two versions — called a fork — if people disagree on the rules.

What happened:

On Saturday, at block number 961,632, computers supporting BIP-110 broke away and started their own chain.
A small mining group called Roughnecks produced just two blocks, then stopped.
Meanwhile, the main Bitcoin network raced ahead — by Sunday it was 111 blocks further along, with the fork frozen for about 17 hours.

Why it failed: The change never had enough support. In the recent voting period, only 2.53% of blocks backed it — far below the 55% needed to activate it smoothly. Without miners, the breakaway chain has almost no computing power, and Bitcoin's built-in difficulty setting (which controls how hard mining is) is now stuck too high for it. Experts say clearing that could take anywhere from under a year to decades.

What was BIP-110 trying to do? It aimed to temporarily limit arbitrary data stuffed into transactions — things like Ordinals (a way of attaching images or files to Bitcoin), which some see as clutter.

High-profile figures Michael Saylor and Adam Back opposed it, mostly disliking how it was being forced through. Saylor said Bitcoin "worked as designed," keeping 99.85% of computing power on the main chain.

One twist: mining firm Ocean admitted some of its miners may have accidentally worked on the failed fork, thinking they were on real Bitcoin. Ocean promised to reimburse them for lost earnings.

Bottom line: This was a rule change that almost nobody joined. The system's design meant it collapsed quickly and quietly, without harming the main Bitcoin network.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/bip110-stalls-bitcoin-miners-do-not-follow