BIP-110 Bitcoin fork stalls after only two blocks mined
A minority chain tied to the controversial Bitcoin improvement proposal BIP-110 has gone live but stalled: it has mined just two blocks in about eight hours, while the main Bitcoin chain advanced by 48 blocks (fork sits near 961,633 vs BTC ~961,681).
BIP-110 would temporarily ban storing non-financial data (e.g., images and text) in Bitcoin transactions for a year. Supporters claim it could reduce congestion and costs, while critics argue users should be able to use paid block space as they choose.
Mechanically, the BIP-110 fork inherits Bitcoin’s mining difficulty and uses a tiny fraction of hashpower (about 2.53% of recent blocks signalled). Because difficulty can only adjust after 2,016 blocks, the monitor estimates the fork would take roughly 350 days to reach its activation/signalling deadline (vs ~14 days for Bitcoin). The required signalled support (55%) has not been reached.
For traders, the slow block production harms confirmation speed on the fork chain. More importantly, both chains still accept the same transactions, creating replay-style risk if users try to sell “fork coins” by broadcasting signed transactions to the main chain and receiving real BTC.
Overall, the BIP-110 Bitcoin fork appears unlikely to progress meaningfully, at least within the current two-week enforcement window.
Neutral
The news is unlikely to materially change BTC’s baseline security or ledger, because the BIP-110 fork is stalling due to insufficient hashpower and inherited mining difficulty, making confirmations slow and preventing meaningful activation within the enforcement window. That typically limits broad market impact.
However, it can still create localized trading frictions: any attempt to trade or custody “fork coins” carries replay-style risks (selling on the fork while transactions can be accepted on the main chain), which may trigger short-term sell/buy confusion and narrower liquidity around any fork-related tokens.
Historically, minority Bitcoin forks with weak signalling (low hashpower support) usually fade without threatening BTC’s price trend. At the same time, replay/compatibility issues have occasionally caused investor losses and short-lived volatility in fork-adjacent assets, even if BTC itself remains largely unaffected.
Net effect: neutral for overall BTC market stability, but higher operational risk for traders dealing with fork coins and any wallets/exchanges supporting them.