Miners reject Luke Dashjr's rogue Bitcoin fork
- Bitcoin miners rejected Luke Dashjr's BIP110 proposal with over 99 percent of hash power.
- Proponents mined four blocks before planning a GPU hard fork away from ASICs.
- Developer Luke Dashjr lost his proposal editor role and stepped down from Ocean pool.
The node rebellion collapsed in days. Bitcoin miners delivered a swift rejection to Luke Dashjr's BIP110 fork. The alternative chain sits completely stranded.
On BTC Sessions, investor Simon Dixon explained that he supported the Bitcoin Knots campaign as an experiment in node power. Backers aimed to use node adoption to pressure mining giant Foundry into enforcing stricter data rules and rolling back Taproot. Nodes running Knots spiked from under one percent to nearly twenty percent. Yet without hash rate, node adoption proved irrelevant.
Over 99 percent of Bitcoin network hash power refused to activate the new software rules. Only Ocean pool, where Dashjr served as co-founder, produced blocks under the fork rules. The alternative chain ground to a halt after generating four blocks in a single week.
The outcome reversed the power dynamics of Bitcoin's 2017 block size war. During that historic conflict, user nodes successfully blocked corporate miners from pushing through code changes. This time, an organized minority of node operators tried to force policy rollbacks onto miners. The experiment showed that node operators cannot unilaterally mandate changes without miner alignment.
Four days after initial reports surfaced, Stacker News Live hosts Keon and Car detailed the swift political fallout. Core maintainers removed Dashjr from his role on the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal editor team. Dashjr subsequently took a sabbatical from Ocean mining pool alongside co-founder Mechanic.
Stranded proponents now plan another hard fork to the Blake2b hashing algorithm. They intend to move their minority chain to GPU mining to protect their network from Bitcoin ASIC miners. Independent developer Peter Todd published a code review analyzing whether non-participating nodes face external harm from these split attempts.
The fallout leaves Bitcoin client development temporarily concentrated around Bitcoin Core. Ocean pool lost hash rate during the dispute, while Knots client adoption stalled due to a mandatory two-year update cycle. The failed split cleanses the main chain, though some developers warn lingering forks could draw away engineering resources.
In Bitcoin, power remains balanced.
Source Intelligence
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How to Get Rich in America | SNL #237 • Aug 17
- The BIP 110 mandatory signaling activated with support from only a tiny minority of miners. Consequently, Luke Dashjr was removed from the BIP editor team and went on sabbatical from Ocean mining pool.
- With only four blocks mined on the split chain, BIP 110 proponents plan a hard fork to the Blake2B hashing algorithm. They intend to transition the chain to GPU mining to prevent Bitcoin ASIC miners from disrupting their network.
- Peter Todd published an independent code review of BIP 110. The review analyzes the code changes to ensure that nodes not running the software face no intentional external harm from the hard fork.
Also discussed on this episode: (12)
Protocol (2)
- At Bitcoin++ Toronto, Fabian Jarr proposed three BIP drafts for cross-input signature aggregation. CISA combines signatures across transaction inputs to improve privacy and potentially reduce block space usage by up to 30 percent.
- Fabian Jarr explained that CISA requires a soft fork, competing with BIP 360 for the V2 Witness version. Additionally, the proposal is not post-quantum ready and remains incompatible with proposed post-quantum cryptographic schemes.
Privacy (4)
- Development plans for Wasabi Wallet include direct hardware wallet coin joins, PayJoin V2, and silent payments. To maintain a strong security posture, the developers write and review all Nostr libraries internally without relying on external NPM packages.
- Rory Sutherland argued that keyboards are an historical mistake and will be replaced by advanced voice transcription. Keon and Car counter that physical keyboards ensure privacy and encourage slower, more thoughtful output compared to verbal speech.
- Automated license plate readers developed by Flock Safety are widely used in Austin. Law enforcement and courthouse personnel frequently abuse these databases for warrantless, unaudited searches, raising severe privacy alarms from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- Keon warns that federal agencies like the CIA and FBI leverage the Patriot Act to access private surveillance systems like Flock without warrants. This backdoor allows state agencies to build continuous profiles of public citizens.
Custody (1)
- Stacker News users highlighted Slip39 as a pure upgrade over BIP39. The standard offers increased backup flexibility for scenarios like theft or physical destruction without sacrificing security.
War (1)
- Peter Todd interviewed a British foreign volunteer in Kiev named Canuck, who was wounded by landmine shrapnel while carrying a casualty. Canuck intends to return to active combat near the front lines once his skin graft heals.
Macro (1)
- Economist Kyla Scanlon reported that the median household net worth has doubled in real terms since the mid-1990s, driven by surging stock prices. While average Americans rely on wages, the top one percent build wealth through S-corp income and capital gains.
Markets (1)
- Kyla Scanlon notes that sports betting platforms and prediction markets are actively competing with traditional stock brokerages for Gen Z investment dollars.
Lightning (1)
- Recipe app Zap.Cooking launched on the Google Play Store, featuring AI-assisted recipe generation and direct Lightning zaps. Users can reward recipe creators or ask the AI chef questions directly using micro-payments.
Society (1)
- The suspect in the United Healthcare CEO shooting pleaded guilty in federal court. Under federal sentencing guidelines, pleading guilty before trial provides credit for accepting responsibility, which may help avoid a life sentence.
The Bitcoin Attacks are NOT About Money | Simon Dixon • Aug 13
- Simon Dixon backed the failed BIP 110 soft fork to test if a vocal minority of node operators could influence centralized mining pools. The attempt proved that miners still wield veto power over node-initiated consensus changes.
- Simon Dixon points out that the BIP 110 debate reversed the power dynamics of the block size war. Historically, nodes resisted changes pushed by corporate miners, but this time nodes unsuccessfully tried to force code changes onto miners.
- Simon Dixon refuses to support any efforts to turn the failed BIP 110 fork into a new altcoin. He warns that trying to split the chain destroys user value, pointing to the historical failures of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.
- The host warns that the BIP 110 failure has centralized client development around Bitcoin Core. Luke Dashjr's Knots client peaked at twenty percent adoption during the debate but is now functionally sidelined due to a mandatory two-year update cycle.
Also discussed on this episode: (6)
Custody (3)
- Simon Dixon treats the simultaneous vulnerabilities and attacks on Coldcard, BTCpay Server, Zeus, and Bolts as a coordinated campaign. He argues the systematic targeting of infrastructure is designed to drive users back to centralized custodians.
- Simon Dixon references the 120,000 Bitcoin Bitfinex hack to argue that spending stolen funds at scale requires state-level backing. He suggests major hacks are often designed to destroy trust or recruit compromised actors rather than for personal enrichment.
- The host argues that unlike holding physical gold, maintaining Bitcoin self-custody requires constant, active participation and ongoing technical education. Passive holders who fail to rehearse security practices and update their setups will struggle to preserve sovereignty.
Protocol (2)
- Simon Dixon recalls that early corporate attempts to scale Bitcoin were driven by VC-backed businesses like Coinbase and Blockchain.info attempting to protect business models reliant on low transaction fees.
- Simon Dixon traces the history of block space congestion back to the 2013 launch of Mastercoin and Tether on the Omni Layer. These early token projects filled blocks and spiked fees, disrupting the original pitch of free payments.
Mining (1)
- Abundant Mines offers a flat-rate hosting model where users retain one hundred percent of their mined Bitcoin and ownership of their hardware. The company uses a hash rate redirect system to guarantee continuous uptime.