New Bitcoin Chain Stalls at Four Blocks: Network’s Founding Conditions Cannot Be Replicated
Plan B Network director Giacomo Zucco stated that the failed BIP-110 fork demonstrates that reproducing Bitcoin’s founding conditions today is nearly impossible.
Nodes supporting the BIP-110 fork split from the mainnet over the weekend, creating a separate chain using only a small fraction of the network’s total hash power. The chain initially stalled at two blocks; Zucco noted during an interview on The Block’s The Starting Block podcast that the chain reached four blocks.
The proposal, supported by long-time Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr, aimed to change consensus rules to limit transactions viewed as spam on the network. Attempting to sustain the fork, Dashjr wanted to select the new proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm based on the last character of the next block’s hash on Testnet4. However, after participants interfered with the selection by producing additional testnet blocks, he was forced to cancel and restart the process. Zucco characterized the fact that decisions were made by Dashjr over Discord as an example of centralization.
Bitcoin’s Early Conditions Cannot Be Replicated
According to Zucco, the failure of BIP-110 was an educational event demonstrating the difficulty of establishing Bitcoin from scratch and fairly today. He described Bitcoin’s development in its early years—away from markets, governments, speculators, and deliberate interference—as an “immaculate conception,” or “kusursuz doğum.” He stated that even modern fair launches cannot achieve equal distribution due to advantages like early hardware access.
Zucco argued that BIP-110 combined technical and governance disputes with a “moral panic.” While he found concerns regarding spam and Bitcoin Core governance to be legitimate, he noted that claims about illegal content being written to the blockchain rushed the process. Furthermore, he evaluated the decision to remove Dashjr as a BIP editor—based on a vote by other developers citing conflicts of interest—as unnecessary, appearing retaliatory, and potentially inflaming governance debates.