TL;DR
- Simple Mining rejected BIP-110 while using Ocean’s DATUM protocol, mining block 961,634 on Bitcoin’s main chain without signaling support for the proposal.
- BIP-110 support peaked near 2.6% of hashrate, far below its 55% target, and the minority branch produced only two blocks before stalling.
- Both chains inherited 127.48T difficulty, leaving the low-hashrate fork unable to progress normally while Bitcoin’s main chain moved more than 200 blocks ahead.
A bitcoin miner rejected BIP-110 before the proposed soft fork’s minority chain fully stalled, highlighting how little mining support the controversial plan had secured. Simple Mining, operating through Ocean’s pool with the DATUM protocol, produced block 961,634 on Bitcoin’s main chain without signaling for the proposal. The decision was striking because Ocean had supported BIP-110 by default, yet DATUM let the miner choose independently. Support for the proposal had peaked near 2.6% of hashrate, dramatically below the 55% threshold supporters sought before mandatory signaling rules took effect, amid public disagreement over Bitcoin blockspace and governance.
We mined block 961,634 using Ocean's DATUM protocol.
The block didn't signal support for BIP-110.
Support peaked at 2.6% while the proposal needed 55%.
Hashrate is a vote you cannot fake, and we decided the proposal wasn't worth following.
Ocean's DATUM protocol gave us the… https://t.co/YVUeHr2oJ4 pic.twitter.com/wYYq20dsam
— Simple Mining (@simpleminingio) August 9, 2026
BIP-110 stalls as Bitcoin’s main chain races ahead
BIP-110 aimed to restrict pictures, text and other non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions for one year, responding to disputes over how block space should be used. At block 961,632, nodes running the proposal began rejecting blocks that did not carry its signal, creating a separate branch. What followed was less a competitive chain split than an immediate demonstration of the hashrate imbalance. The minority chain produced only blocks 961,632 and 961,633 before grinding to a halt, while Bitcoin’s dominant chain continued adding blocks at its normal rhythm and rapidly expanded the gap.
The majority of miners, economic nodes, and exchanges continued with the non-fork.
Miners can switch to any pool they want. One big pool even had them vote within the pool.
Its not that miners are in control. The fork just didn’t have consensus.
— Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact) August 9, 2026
The mechanics made recovery increasingly difficult. Both branches inherited Bitcoin’s newly adjusted mining difficulty of 127.48T, but the BIP-110 side possessed only a fraction of total computing power. That meant finding additional blocks took far longer than Bitcoin’s usual ten-minute target. The fork was therefore trapped by the same proof-of-work rules it was attempting to use as leverage. Supporter Matthew Kratter acknowledged that a massive change would be required for the branch to catch up, while Roughnecks later asked miners using the current algorithm on the BIP-110 chain to stop until further notice.
The episode also exposed disagreement over what failure actually means in Bitcoin governance. Luke Dashjr rejected claims that BIP-110 had failed, while others argued that miners, economic nodes and exchanges had overwhelmingly remained on the non-fork chain. Simple Mining framed its own choice more directly, saying hashrate represented a vote it could not fake. The broader lesson is that protocol ambitions still collide with practical consensus when miners decline to follow. By Monday, the main chain had advanced more than 200 blocks beyond the stalled branch, leaving BIP-110 supporters defending a proposal whose attempted activation had produced only two blocks.
