Luke Dashjr Threatens PoW Hard Fork as BIP-110 Fails to Hit 55% Threshold
BIP-110 miner support is mathematically unable to hit the 55% activation threshold this difficulty period. Luke Dashjr's threat of a proof-of-work hard fork as a fallback is the real risk Bitcoiners need to watch heading into block 961,632.
Bitcoin's BIP-110 soft fork cannot activate in the current difficulty period. The fallback plan is a proof-of-work change that would strand billions in ASIC hardware.
Key takeaways
- BIP-110 miner signaling sat at just 2.56% (40 of 1,561 blocks) as of block 961,176, against a 55% threshold, making activation in the current difficulty period mathematically impossible.
- Developer Chris Guida has rebased Luke Dashjr's 2017 proof-of-work hard fork code onto Bitcoin Knots as a contingency; Dashjr has stated that a PoW change is the only option if BIP-110 fails.
- The mandatory signaling window opens at block 961,632, estimated around August 9, 2026. Knots-enforcing nodes will begin rejecting non-signaling blocks at that point.
Bitcoin climbed to near $65,000 on August 7, 2026, but the price is the sideshow. The real story is what happens at block 961,632, estimated to arrive Saturday, when a minority of Bitcoin Knots nodes begin enforcing BIP-110 rules against a miner set that has shown almost no support for the proposal.
As of block 961,176, only 40 of 1,561 blocks had signaled for BIP-110, per signaling data tracked by The Bitcoin Roll. That is 2.56%. The activation threshold is 55%, or 1,109 of 2,016 blocks in a difficulty period. The math is closed. BIP-110 does not activate this round.
The Contingency Code Is Already Written
Developer Chris Guida confirmed on August 4 that he has rebased Dashjr's 2017 PoW hard fork code onto current Bitcoin Knots. Per Bitcoin.com News, Guida wrote: "That's not the case. This is just some code to have in our back pocket in case miners betray bitcoin, to activate at some point later." That is not a theoretical contingency. The code exists and is being maintained.
Dashjr has stated in reporting by Bitcoin.com News that a PoW change is the only option if BIP-110 fails to pan out.
A PoW change is a hard fork that would render current SHA-256 ASIC hardware worthless on the new chain and produce two incompatible ledgers from the point of the split. Every holder at the time of the fork would hold coins on both chains, which is why some market participants are reportedly accumulating ahead of the deadline: a speculative fork trade, not conviction buying.
Dashjr has also stated separately that BIP-110 cannot cause a chain split on its own, arguing that miners attacking the network would only hurt themselves. That framing is technically defensible for the soft fork mechanism. It does not apply to the PoW contingency, which is structurally a chain split by design.
BIP-110, formally titled the "Reduced Data Temporary Softfork," was assigned its BIP number on December 3, 2025, and reached "Complete" status on June 25, 2026, per SimpleMining's technical breakdown. Its seven consensus rules would cap OP_RETURN outputs at 83 bytes and restrict Taproot witness data pushes to 256 bytes. The stated goal is reducing on-chain data bloat. The mechanism is a consensus rule that would invalidate currently valid, fee-paying transactions.
Michael Saylor put it plainly on X, as reported by the Bitcoin Foundation: "BIP 110 turns a spam dispute into a consensus change that would invalidate some currently valid, fee-paying transactions." Adam Back (Blockstream) and BIP editor Mark "Murch" Erhardt, who called it "a misguided and unusually careless softfork proposal," have both publicly opposed it.
What the Enforcement Posture Actually Risks
The soft fork itself is not the chain-split vector. The enforcement minority is.
When block 961,632 arrives, Knots nodes enforcing BIP-110 will begin rejecting blocks from miners who have not signaled. If the majority of hash power continues mining without signaling, those Knots nodes sit on a minority fork, receiving orphaned blocks. Short reorgs are possible on the Knots side. Holders transacting around that window on Knots-enforcing nodes face real operational exposure.
Bitcoin Core developer Jon Atack has advised pausing transfers around block 961,632 as a precaution, per SimpleMining.
The precedent question cuts deeper than this specific fight. BIP-110's opponents, including Saylor and Back, are not arguing that spam is fine. They are arguing that using consensus rules to filter transaction types is a vector that does not stay contained to the use case that motivated it.
States and regulators have every incentive to exploit a demonstrated willingness to restrict valid transaction types via consensus rules. That argument deserves weight regardless of where one lands on Ordinals and inscriptions.
The 2017 Blocksize War ended when the economic majority (exchanges, businesses, node runners) aligned against SegWit2x and miners stood down. This situation is structurally inverted. The BIP-110 enforcement coalition appears to be a minority of node operators attempting to coerce a majority of hash power. If coercion fails, the stated fallback is a PoW change that would strand the entire ASIC mining industry.
The falsifiable thesis: if miners voluntarily signal above 55% in the next difficulty period after block 961,632, the soft fork activates cleanly, proving the UASF enforcement mechanism worked and that miner-node alignment was genuine. If they do not, and if the Knots minority stands down without triggering the PoW contingency, the threat was empty and consensus held without incident. If the PoW contingency is actually deployed, Bitcoin faces its most serious chain-split event since 2017, with consequences for bond market stress already compressing risk appetite across asset classes.
What to Watch at Block 961,632
The operative question is not whether BIP-110 activates this difficulty period. It will not. The question is whether the Knots-enforcing minority holds its posture, forces a coordination failure, and whether Guida's PoW contingency moves from "back pocket" to active proposal.
Node runners on Bitcoin Knots with BIP-110 enforcement enabled should treat the window around block 961,632 as operationally live. Anyone transacting during that window should verify which software their counterparties are running. The signaling tracker at bip110.org will show in real time whether miner behavior shifts in the next period. Watch the numbers, not the rhetoric.
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
A proof-of-work change produces two incompatible chains from the fork block. Holders at the time of the split receive equivalent coins on both chains. The new chain would be incompatible with current SHA-256 ASIC hardware, effectively stranding existing mining infrastructure on the original chain. This is why some traders are reportedly accumulating ahead of block 961,632, treating it as a speculative fork trade rather than a conviction buy.
BIP-110 is structured as a soft fork, meaning it imposes tighter rules that are theoretically backward compatible. But if the enforcing minority rejects the majority chain, or if the PoW change contingency is triggered as a fallback, the result is a hard fork and chain split. "Soft fork" describes the activation mechanism, not the political and economic conflict around enforcement.
The risk is the minority posture meeting a non-cooperating majority.
Block 961,632 is the start of the mandatory signaling window under BIP-110's activation parameters, estimated to arrive around August 9, 2026. At that block, nodes running Bitcoin Knots with BIP-110 enforcement enabled begin rejecting blocks from miners who have not signaled support. With miner signaling at 2.56% against a 55% threshold, the majority of blocks will not signal, which is where the coordination failure lies.
