Controversial Bitcoin fork BIP-110 mines two blocks, then stops
A controversial Bitcoin fork, BIP-110, has stalled after mining only two blocks due to a lack of network support. The proposal aimed to restrict non-financial data on the blockchain, but failed to gain traction among miners.
Why it matters
The failure of this fork illustrates the difficulty of implementing protocol changes in decentralized networks without broad consensus from mining pools.
It sits at block 961,633 while the main bitcoin chain has reached block 961,681, per the BIP-110 situation monitor . The fork happened at 961,632, when computers running BIP-110 software began rejecting any block that did not signal support for the proposal.
A block is a batch of transactions added to bitcoin's ledger roughly every ten minutes, so the gap of 48 represents most of a day's worth of activity on one side and almost none on the other.
BIP-110, short for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal-110, is a move to stop people storing pictures, text and other non-financial data inside bitcoin transactions for a year. Supporters say the practice can clog the network with material that has nothing to do with payments and pushes up costs for people actually sending money.
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