A proposed Bitcoin fork based on BIP-110 has stalled after producing only two blocks, exposing the severe hashpower shortage plaguing the project. The fork remains trapped at Bitcoin's full mining difficulty, creating an insurmountable barrier for miners to continue block production.
The enforcing fork relies on mandatory signaling from miners, but adoption remains minimal across the network. Without sufficient hashpower behind the proposal, blocks cannot be mined at the required difficulty level. This technical deadlock reveals a fundamental problem with the fork's design: it demands miner consensus that simply does not exist.
BIP-110 represents a contentious proposal within Bitcoin's development community. The fork enforces specific rule changes through what supporters call mandatory signaling, requiring miners to explicitly support the upgrade or face their blocks being rejected. This differs sharply from Bitcoin's traditional soft fork approach, where non-signaling miners can continue operating without forced participation.
The two-block production demonstrates miners view BIP-110 with skepticism. Without broader hashpower commitment, the chain cannot progress beyond Bitcoin's standard difficulty retargeting mechanism. The gap between the fork and the main Bitcoin chain only widens as legitimate blocks accumulate on the original network while BIP-110 remains stuck.
This failure underscores a core principle of Bitcoin's consensus mechanism: forks require genuine network support to function. Proposals that alienate major mining pools or fail to build coalitions quickly find themselves abandoned. BIP-110's mandatory signaling approach apparently alienated enough of the mining community to prevent liftoff.
The stalled fork serves as a cautionary tale for future Bitcoin improvement proposals. Achieving network-wide consensus requires extensive discussion, stakeholder buy-in, and demonstrated miner support before any fork attempt. Attempts to force changes through mandatory signaling without building that foundation appear destined for failure. BIP-110's two-block history stands