Bitcoin's New Rule Change Flops: Only 2 Blocks Mined Before Stalling

A proposed change to how Bitcoin works has hit a major roadblock — almost no one wants to use it.

What happened? A new Bitcoin rule called BIP-110 created a separate "branch" (a version of the Bitcoin network running different software rules). This branch managed to produce only two blocks before stalling, while the regular Bitcoin network kept moving ahead. A "block" is a batch of transactions that gets added to Bitcoin's public record roughly every 10 minutes.

The result: the two chains have drifted far apart.

• The BIP-110 branch got stuck at block 961,633
• The regular Bitcoin chain reached block 961,721
• That's a gap of 88 blocks
• Only 51 out of 2,016 recent blocks supported the change — just 2.53%

Why so little support? Bitcoin runs on "miners" — computers that compete to process transactions and earn rewards. The combined power of all these computers is called hashpower. Almost no miners are backing BIP-110, so its branch can barely produce blocks. The first two were mined by a pseudonymous group called Roughnecks using a mining tool from a company called Ocean.

Why does the branch struggle to keep up? Bitcoin has a built-in feature called difficulty — a setting that controls how hard it is to mine blocks. Because so few miners support BIP-110, the branch is stuck grinding through the required period at full difficulty, making progress painfully slow.

Big names are against it. Several influential figures in the Bitcoin world have pushed back:

• Michael Saylor (chairman of Strategy) said he agreed with the goals but warned the approach threatens Bitcoin's neutral, unchanging rules.
• Adam Back (CEO of Blockstream) cautioned it could damage Bitcoin's credibility and even make some coins impossible to spend.

The takeaway: BIP-110 shows how hard it is to change Bitcoin. Unless far more mining power gets behind it, this branch looks likely to fade — a reminder that Bitcoin only changes when a large majority agrees.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-bip-110-branch-stalls-miner-support?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound