A minority chain opened by BIP-110 supporters has stalled after the split at Bitcoin block 961,632. CoinDesk reported that around 06:00 UTC on Aug 9 the breakaway chain sat at block 961,633 — only two blocks in roughly eight hours — while the main chain reached 961,681, a gap of 48 blocks.
BIP-110 is a temporary one-year rule set that would restrict non-financial data such as images and text inside Bitcoin transactions. Nodes enforcing it reject blocks that do not signal support. Only 2.53% of recent blocks signaled for BIP-110, far below the 55% threshold cited to activate without a split. The mandatory signaling window runs through block 963,647.
According to CoinDesk, AntPool mined the first non-signaling block accepted on the main network, and a miner using Ocean produced the BIP-110 alternative. The minority chain inherited full Bitcoin difficulty with only a tiny share of hashpower, so blocks arrive hours apart; the situation monitor cited by CoinDesk put the next difficulty adjustment about 350 days away on the fork versus about 14 days on mainnet.
Both chains still accept identical transaction formats, which creates cross-chain replay risk: a signed spend valid on one chain can be rebroadcast on the other. Slow confirmation times on the minority chain compound that mechanical problem. Sources: CoinDesk; earlier chain-gap snapshots also appeared on Bitcoin.com News and KuCoin/BlockTempo flash notes as the lead widened through the night.
CoinDesk