Bitcoin Fork BIP-110 Mines Two Blocks Then Stalls on Insufficient Hashpower

The Quick Take

• Bitcoin fork BIP-110 successfully mined its first two blocks but quickly stalled as it launched with only a tiny fraction of Bitcoin's network hashpower.
• The breakaway chain inherited Bitcoin's mining difficulty — set for the full network — leaving blocks spaced hours apart rather than the target 10-minute interval.
• Both the original Bitcoin chain and the BIP-110 fork currently accept the same transactions, indicating the economic consensus for the fork remains very thin.

A controversial Bitcoin network upgrade proposal, BIP-110, launched as an independent fork chain and successfully produced its first two blocks before encountering the fundamental challenge that has derailed most Bitcoin forks: hashpower scarcity. CoinDesk reports the fork inherited Bitcoin's full network mining difficulty — set based on the combined compute power of all Bitcoin miners — but launched with only a tiny share of that hashpower. This mathematical mismatch means blocks take hours to mine rather than the 10-minute target, effectively making the fork chain unusable for real-time transactions and undermining any argument for its viability as a distinct network.

The market implications for Bitcoin are limited by the fork's weak technical performance. Bitcoin's transaction history has shown that forks lacking significant hashpower and economic consensus — both measured by miner adoption and exchange listing — fail to capture meaningful value. The fact that both chains are still accepting the same transactions confirms the fork has not yet achieved what cryptographers call a clean split, meaning no economic finality has been achieved. Bitcoin itself may face short-term volatility as community debate around BIP-110's intent continues, but the fork's inability to sustain consistent block production makes it an unlikely sustained threat to Bitcoin dominance in the near term.

The critical watch point is whether any major Bitcoin mining pools — particularly AntPool, Foundry USA, or F2Pool, which collectively control significant hashpower — pledge support for BIP-110. Without pool support, the fork cannot close its hashpower gap and the chain will remain technically impractical. The macro variable that determines Bitcoin's near-term price impact from this event is whether significant capital holders treat BIP-110 balances as having value — the same mechanism that briefly gave Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV price discovery after their respective forks — or treat the event as purely technical noise without market relevance.

Synthesized from 1 source.