Bitcoin developers strip Luke Dashjr of maintainer role
- Bitcoin Core maintainers removed Luke Dashjr as proposal editor after his fork collapsed.
- Miners refused to run BIP 110 code, freezing the rogue chain after just two blocks.
- A failed node revolt demonstrated that miners still control protocol rules.
The rebellion lasted two blocks before physics crushed it.
When Luke Dashjr launched the BIP 110 soft fork to censor non-financial data like Ordinals, he expected node operators to force miners into line. Instead, 99.85 percent of hashing power stayed on the main chain. Ocean Mining redirected user hash power to the rogue fork without explicit consent, but the network stalled almost immediately under high difficulty. Host David Bennett noted on Bitcoin And that Ocean was forced to offer 0.3 Bitcoin in rebates to appease furious miners.
The next day, core developer Mark Erhardt filed a pull request to remove Dashjr from his role as a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal editor. Erhardt cited editorial misconduct, revealing that Dashjr had bypassed standard review procedures to fast-track his own code after authoring fewer than one percent of editorial comments over the previous four months. Dashjr subsequently announced a sabbatical from his leadership role at Ocean Mining.
Investor Simon Dixon framed the collapse on BTC Sessions as a crucial test of node power versus mining hardware. While user adoption of Dashjr's alternative Bitcoin Knots client climbed toward 20 percent, node operators lacked the leverage to compel pools like Foundry to enforce the new rules. Dixon noted that unlike the 2017 block size war, where user nodes successfully blocked corporate code changes, this node-led attempt to roll back protocol features proved that consensus changes require complete ecosystem alignment.
On Bankless, Ryan Sean Adams and David Hoffman observed how ruthlessly Bitcoin's consensus engine eliminates split chains. Without overwhelming hash power to navigate initial difficulty adjustments, copied code cannot sustain its own ledger. Network effects and security guarantees remain tethered to the primary chain, leaving rebels stranded without a functional network.
The timing worsened the crisis for self-custody purists. As node operators bickered over protocol rules, coordinated exploits hit hardware wallets and Lightning infrastructure. On Bitcoin And, Bennett explained how Wall Street asset managers capitalized on the chaos. BlackRock lowered its ETF conversion threshold to $1 million, offering nervous holders an off-ramp into regulated funds just as the rogue fork exposed governance vulnerabilities.
Code can be copied overnight, but network consensus cannot be hijacked by an elite minority.