Key Takeaways
- Antpool and Roughnecks mined rival Bitcoin blocks at height 961632, splitting the chain.
- Bitcoin’s main chain advanced past 961634 as BIP-110 remained stalled at 961632.
- BIP-110 could remain stuck for days unless supporters alter PoW after block 961632.
Rival Miners Split Bitcoin at Block 961632
Several monitoring sites, including forkwatch.tv and the web portal fork.observer, logged the chain split at block 961632 shortly after 4 p.m. EDT. On X, Mempool.space developer Mononaut wrote:
“WE HAVE A BIP110 BLOCK. The race is on! Literally the entire rest of the network is still mining on the non-signaling chain tip though. Extremely divergent block templates, due to the differences in policy and the 40 minute wait between those blocks.”
Difficulty Jumps as Competing Chains Collide
The split landed at the exact moment Bitcoin underwent a difficulty adjustment, with mining difficulty climbing 0.99% at block 961632.
Mempool.space data shows Antpool mined block 961632, while the BIP-110 supporter-run clone mempool.kilombino.com shows Roughnecks mining a competing version of the same block.
The fork.observer dashboard shows Roughnecks connected with Ocean Pool. Since then, Bitcoin’s main chain has kept chugging along, with blocks 961633 and 961634 subsequently mined by F2pool and Simple Mining. On social media, BIP-110 supporters LukeDashjr and Bitcoin Mechanic were none too pleased that Antpool won the race for block 961632.
“Antpool appears to be attacking Bitcoin. Hold tight everyone,” LukeDashjr wrote on X, while Bitcoin Mechanic stated:
“Antpool Official you just mined an invalid block. Hope everything’s OK!”
Dathon Ohm, BIP-110’s creator, congratulated Roughnecks for mining the first BIP-110-compliant block. “Congratulations to Roughnecks for mining the first block of the mandatory signaling period! Now is where the game theory starts to kick in. BIP-110 is activating,” Dathon Ohm wrote.
BIP-110 Chain Stalls as Nuclear Option Looms
As of 4:35 p.m. EDT, the BIP-110 side of the split remains frozen at block 961632, and given the limited hashrate backing it, finding the next block could take considerably longer. Ultimately, it could take days depending on the hashrate dedicated to the fork and the difficulty it now faces. That is, of course, unless the chain’s supporters decide to push the nuclear button. This story is still developing.
Hero/Feature image via forkwatch.tv
