Bitcoin Anti-Spam Fork Stalls After Mining Just Two Blocks

A Bitcoin fork triggered by BIP-110, a controversial proposal to restrict non-financial data from the network, activated over the weekend but failed to gain traction. The breakaway chain, which attracted roughly 2.53% of recent mining support, managed only two blocks in roughly eight hours before stalling as the main network continued producing blocks every ten minutes.

The fork's inability to sustain itself stems from Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment mechanism. The network recalibrates mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks, and the minority chain inherited the main network's current settings while commanding only a fraction of its computing power. At its current pace, the breakaway chain would require approximately 350 days to trigger the next difficulty adjustment, compared to about two weeks for Bitcoin, leaving blocks hours apart.

BIP-110 sought to block users from embedding images, text, and other non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions, a practice popularized by Ordinals that proponents argue clogs the network and inflates fees. Critics, however, contend that users paying for block space have the right to use it as they choose, and that allowing miners and node operators to police transactions undermines Bitcoin's censorship resistance. Michael Saylor, among others, warned that treating the matter as a consensus change sets a dangerous precedent.

On Sunday morning, Saylor noted on social media that Bitcoin functioned as designed: roughly 99.85% of hash power remained with the main network, making the outcome decisive.