BIP-110 Supporters Revive Minority Fork, Slash Block Size to Just 300 KB

BIP-110 Minority Chain Comes Back to Life 23 Days After Bitcoin Split

It has been 23 days since the BIP-110 minority chain split that saw a minority chain created by a group of supporters who believe the Bitcoin blockchain should only be used for financial transactions. After the split, the minority BIP-110 chain stalled, and miners had a difficult time discovering blocks under the weight of the difficulty it adopted from the main Bitcoin chain. The chain split at block height 961632.

BIP-110 supporters managed to mine blocks up to 961639, and then, suddenly at block height 961640, the chain kicked into a higher gear. The block was mined by a pool or entity dubbed Silent Wave under the new Blake2b consensus rules while the chain is running. Dashjr is still calling this a rehearsal. Word on the street is the next software release is expected to drop tomorrow, on Sept. 1. At the time of writing, blockchain data shows that more than 800 minority chain blocks have been mined since then.

Dashjr Finally Gets His 300 kB Block Size Wish

In addition to the PoW shift, Dashjr and minority chain developers have reduced the block size to 300 kB. This is something Dashjr has wanted to do for a very long time with Bitcoin’s block size. Back in 2019, Bitcoin.com News reported on Dashjr and his requests to shrink the block size. This idea was first proposed in 2017 in a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP). While many were fighting about whether Bitcoin’s 1 MB block size was too small, Dashjr has always insisted on shrinking it further.