Bitcoin ‘anti-spam’ fork halts after mining two blocks

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A controversial Bitcoin soft fork designed to strip arbitrary data from transactions managed to produce exactly two blocks before running out of steam. The BIP-110 minority chain stalled at block 961,633 on August 9, while the main Bitcoin network kept chugging along as if nothing happened.

What BIP-110 tried to do

BIP-110 was pitched as a temporary soft fork, roughly one year in duration, that would restrict data-heavy transactions on Bitcoin. The target: non-financial data that critics call “spam,” referring to things like NFT inscriptions and other arbitrary payloads that bloat block space.

The proposal required nodes enforcing the new rules to reject any block that didn’t carry a specific version-bit-4 signal. At block height 961,632, the signaling window opened, and the chain split began.

The problem was immediate and fatal. BIP-110 needed 55% of mining hashpower to signal support for lock-in. It got nowhere close. Approximately 99.85% of hashpower stayed on the dominant chain, leaving the BIP-110 branch with a sliver of computational power so thin it could barely produce blocks at all.

Two blocks. That’s what the minority chain managed before grinding to a halt. Meanwhile, the main chain advanced by roughly 48 to 57 blocks within eight hours, reaching heights between 961,681 and 961,690.

The neutrality debate

PlanB and Michael Saylor both raised concerns that BIP-110 risked undermining Bitcoin’s neutrality. Their argument: once you start filtering transactions based on content, you’ve opened a door that’s very hard to close. Today it’s NFT data. Tomorrow it could be transactions from specific addresses or jurisdictions.

That precedent-setting concern appears to have resonated with miners. When 99.85% of hashpower refuses to signal for your proposal, the market has spoken with unusual clarity.