A small group of Bitcoin supporters tried to push through a rule change called BIP-110 over the weekend, but it did not pass.

The separate version of Bitcoin they created to enforce the change has produced only two new blocks in about eight hours, while the real Bitcoin network has kept running normally and added 48 blocks during the same window.

What You Need to Know

Bitcoin adds a new “block” of transactions to its permanent record roughly every ten minutes. Computers called miners compete to add each block, and in return they earn newly created Bitcoin plus fees.

BIP-110 is a proposed rule that would ban the storage of pictures, text, and other non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions for one year. 

Supporters say this kind of data storage clogs the network and makes it more expensive for people who just want to send money. 

Opponents say anyone who pays the transaction fee should be able to use the space however they want, and that miners shouldn’t get to decide which transactions count as legitimate.

For a rule like this to apply across all of Bitcoin, 55% of miners need to signal they support it over a two-week period. BIP-110 never got close, as only 2.53% of miners signaled support.

Rather than accepting that the change failed, a small group of supporters set up their own separate version of Bitcoin that automatically rejects any block that doesn’t follow the new rule.

That’s what people mean when they say Bitcoin “split” or “forked” this weekend. Nothing changed for Bitcoin. A small side version was created alongside it.

Why the Breakaway Version Isn’t Working

The new, BIP-110-only version of Bitcoin has a problem it can’t easily fix. Bitcoin adjusts how hard it is to mine a new block based on the total computing power working on it, so that blocks arrive roughly every 10 minutes, no matter how many miners are involved. 

When the breakaway version split off, it copied Bitcoin’s current difficulty setting, the one designed for Bitcoin’s full mining power. But almost none of that mining power followed the breakaway version. It’s left trying to mine blocks at Bitcoin’s normal difficulty with only a tiny sliver of the miners.

That mismatch is why it’s moving so slowly. A tracking site that monitors the breakaway chain estimates it will take about 350 days for it to accumulate enough blocks to adjust its own difficulty to a more realistic level, compared to about 14 days for the real Bitcoin network to do the same.

In practice, this means the breakaway version could sit nearly frozen for close to a year unless a lot more mining power suddenly decides to join it, which, so far, nothing suggests is happening.

A Real Money Risk Tied to This Split

Bitcoin and the breakaway version currently accept the exact same type of transaction, since they only just split apart. 

That means a transaction sending coins from the breakaway version can also be copied and sent on real Bitcoin, using the same signed message. 

If someone sells coins from the breakaway version to a buyer, that buyer could instead use the exact same signed transaction on the real Bitcoin network, collecting real Bitcoin from the seller while the seller receives only the breakaway version’s far less useful coins in return.

This is a mechanical feature of how the two networks currently overlap, not something either side has to intend for it to happen.

Who’s on Each Side of This Debate

The discussion goes back to a change in Bitcoin’s main software in October 2025 that made it easier to store non-financial data in transactions. 

People who supported that October change said it just matched how miners already behaved anyway, and that blocking one method of storing data would only push people toward other methods that could be worse for the network. 

People who opposed it said it invited spam and even the possibility of illegal material being stored permanently on Bitcoin. That disagreement eventually led to BIP-110.

Ocean’s Chief Technology Officer, Luke Dashjr, has been one of the most visible supporters of BIP-110, arguing that this kind of data storage burdens the people running Bitcoin’s software and distracts from Bitcoin’s main purpose as money. 

On the other hand, Strategy’s executive chairman Michael Saylor published a lengthy essay in July arguing that Bitcoin’s rules should exist only to prevent real security threats, not to judge what a transaction is used for.

You can read our earlier coverage of Saylor’s essay opposing BIP-110 and our broader profile of Michael Saylor for more on his other recent positions.

What This Looked Like the Last Time Bitcoin Changed Its Rules

Bitcoin’s last major rule change, called Taproot, went smoothly by comparison. 

It had broad support from miners before it activated in November 2021, and it never produced a separate, competing version of Bitcoin, unlike BIP-110. BIP-110’s supporters have pointed to a different, older example instead, a 2017 rule change called SegWit, which succeeded even though miners hadn’t fully signaled support for it at first. 

It looks unlikely that BIP-110 can follow that same path so far, given how little mining support it has compared to SegWit at the same stage.

What Happens From Here

The two-week period during which the breakaway version requires every new block to follow BIP-110’s rules ends at roughly block 963,647 on the real Bitcoin network. 

At its current pace of two blocks in eight hours, the breakaway version has no realistic chance of reaching that point in time. Unless a large number of new miners suddenly join, which nothing in the current numbers suggests is imminent, BIP-110 will not become an official rule on Bitcoin this time around.

The breakaway version may continue to exist in some limited form afterward, but it’s already fallen so far behind, and everything happening so far points toward this attempt not succeeding.

What this means for you: regular Bitcoin has not changed, and nothing about this affects your existing Bitcoin holdings or how the network you already use works. The only thing worth real caution around is the separate, breakaway version and any coins associated with it, since the replay issue described above means selling or trading those coins carries a specific, mechanical risk that does not exist with regular Bitcoin.

Disclosure: The writer holds Bitcoin.