The splinter chain carried over Bitcoin’s existing mining difficulty despite controlling only a fraction of the network’s hashpower. As a result, blocks are being produced hours apart, even though both chains continue to process the same transactions.
The minority network emerged on Saturday when BIP-110 supporters split from Bitcoin. Since going live, it has managed to produce only two blocks over roughly eight hours, with little indication that miners plan to keep it running.
By around 6 a.m. UTC, the new chain was at block 961,633, while the main Bitcoin network had advanced to block 961,681, according to the BIP-110 monitor. The fork occurred at block 961,632, when nodes running BIP-110 software began rejecting any blocks that did not signal support for the proposal.
A Bitcoin block—typically added every ten minutes—contains a batch of transactions. The 48-block gap therefore reflects nearly a full day of activity on the main chain, compared to minimal progress on the fork.
BIP-110, short for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, aims to temporarily prevent the storage of non-financial data, such as images or text, within Bitcoin transactions for one year. Supporters argue that such activity clutters the network and raises costs for users making genuine payments.
Critics, however, say that anyone paying transaction fees should be free to use block space as they wish, and that miners or node operators should not decide which transactions are acceptable.
AntPool mined the first block that did not signal support for BIP-110, which was accepted by the main network but rejected by BIP-110 nodes. Meanwhile, a miner using Ocean produced the alternative block that the breakaway chain followed. (Miners use large amounts of computing power to secure the network and process transactions, earning newly issued bitcoin and fees in return.)
Both AntPool and Ocean operate as mining pools, where participants combine computing resources and share rewards.
The slowdown stems from a structural issue. Bitcoin adjusts its mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks to keep block production close to one every ten minutes.
Because the fork inherited this difficulty level but has far less hashpower, block production has slowed significantly. It cannot lower the difficulty until it completes 2,016 blocks, which could take around 350 days at the current pace—compared with about 14 days for the main Bitcoin network.
Support for BIP-110 has been limited. Over the past two weeks, only 2.53% of blocks signaled support, far below the 55% threshold required to activate the proposal without a split.
This creates complications for trading the forked asset. Since both chains still recognize identical transactions, a transaction broadcast on the fork can also be replayed on the Bitcoin network, potentially allowing a buyer to claim real BTC from the same transfer—raising the risk of a new type of attack.
At the same time, the fork’s slow block production means transactions take much longer to confirm, making it less practical for trading.
BIP-110 nodes will continue requiring all blocks to signal support until block 963,647. However, at the current pace, the breakaway chain is unlikely to reach that point within the two-week window.
