Inside the BIP 110 Activation Watch Party: The Day the Chain Split

An Early Arrival

I had scheduled the live watch party to go down a bit later in the day, but blocks started absolutely rushing in. We found ourselves scrambling - some of us still with wet hair from the shower - because the activation epoch for BIP 110 arrived almost an hour and forty minutes earlier than expected.

I had two mempools pulled up side-by-side: my local Umbrel running a BIP 110 compliant node, and a Start9 node running Bitcoin Core. The suspense was palpable. Would miners signal for the soft fork, or would they reject it? The answer came swiftly.

The Split Occurs: Block 961632

Almost immediately upon activation, block 961632 was mined by Antpool on the legacy chain. It was not signaling for BIP 110. Instantly, the BIP 110 node on the left side of my screen stalled at 961631, rejecting the non-compliant block.

We had a split. Legacy Bitcoin had pulled ahead by one block, while the BIP 110 side waited.

This kicked off an intense waiting game. The BIP 110 network had only hovered around 2.5% of the total hash rate leading up to this moment. Miners were now forced into a high-stakes decision: continue mining on the legacy chain and risk a reorg, or switch hash power to BIP 110 and risk wasting money if the soft fork failed. Antpool had essentially drawn a line in the sand.

The Wait, The Game Theory, and The Soul-Searching

For over 30 minutes, there were no new blocks. The chat on the stream was buzzing. Soleil, a staunch supporter of BIP 110, joined the panel and shared his thoughts on the potential fallout. As an investor who had divested from companies opposing BIP 110, he faced a "soul-searching weekend" depending on the outcome.

We debated the core issues: was this a failure of consensus, or miner collusion? To me, it felt simple: the soft fork simply hadn't gained enough consensus in the battlefield of ideas. With only around 15% of nodes, 2.5% hash rate, and zero major exchanges firmly backing the change, it lacked the economic and network weight needed to strong-arm the miners.

The Rough Necks Strike Back

Just as we were settling into the idea that BIP 110 might quietly fizzle out, the impossible happened. A mining pool known as Rough Necks, using Ocean, mined a block signaling for BIP 110!

Suddenly, the chains were tied. The prediction markets, which had dropped BIP 110's chances to 2%, saw a tiny blip of life. The tension skyrocketed. Rough Necks had put serious skin in the game, risking hundreds of thousands of dollars in block rewards by mining on the split chain. If the rest of the hash power flipped to BIP 110, they could reorg Antpool's block and claim victory. It was incredible theater.

The Final Blow

But the tie didn't last long. Soon after, another block was mined on the legacy side. In a twist of irony, it was mined by an Ocean miner who was not signaling for BIP 110.

From there, the legacy chain ran away with it. Foundry, F2Pool, and Antpool continued to build on the legacy side, pushing it five blocks ahead. The economic incentives had won out. Mining is a business with tight margins, and abandoning the heavier, more profitable chain simply wasn't a risk the major pools were willing to take. Rough Necks' brave block was officially orphaned, and the hash power they spent on it was lost.

What We Learned

The failure of BIP 110's activation proves something fundamental about Bitcoin: it is incredibly difficult to change. And for a decentralized monetary network, that is a feature, not a bug.

Some see this event as proof that miners have too much power. Others view it as a demonstration that economic weight and consensus ultimately steer the ship. Regardless of where you stand on the spam debate, the resilience of the network was on full display. A minority group, no matter how vocal or principled, cannot force a rule change without widespread economic consensus.

As the dust settles, I hope the community can heal. The anti-spam advocates are good Bitcoiners fighting for what they believe is the best path forward, and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we are all fighting the same primary enemy: the fiat system and central banks.

If you're running a BIP 110 node and need to get back on the legacy chain, be aware that you'll have to reindex your node to catch up on the blocks you rejected. Stay safe out there, and keep stacking.