Why Bitcoin forked
What happened ? Big Miners colluded to rejected the BIP110 (Bitcoin Improvement Program). BIP110 was more about putting bitcoin back to not letting in silly pictures. Not really a fork more of a return to sanity. The chain split at block 931632 on the 8/8/2026. The main Bitcoin fork carries on like nothing happened mining blocks every 10 minutes, the BIP110 fork has virtually stalled mining only a few blocks.
The following - now busy preparing the resulting hard fork or sacking the big miners via a change in POW algorithm from SHA256 to Blake2B hence making the big pools & roughly 4 million ASIC units obsolete on the new BIP110 chain. Some believe if Big Mining can refuse to obey the nodes / plebs, they have been effectively captured Bitcoin making the whole point of Bitcoin eventually obsolete. The truth remains to be seen.
Ocean mining have been doing excellent work in trying to decentralize Bitcoin mining with the Introduction of DATUM (Decentralized Alternative Templates for Universal Mining)
The following - now busy preparing the resulting hard fork or sacking the big miners via a change in POW algorithm from SHA256 to Blake2B hence making the big pools & roughly 4 million ASIC units obsolete on the new BIP110 chain. Some believe if Big Mining can refuse to obey the nodes / plebs, they have been effectively captured Bitcoin making the whole point of Bitcoin eventually obsolete. The truth remains to be seen.
Ocean mining have been doing excellent work in trying to decentralize Bitcoin mining with the Introduction of DATUM (Decentralized Alternative Templates for Universal Mining)
Where the true bitcoiner's are at & the origins of the Bitcoin BIP110 fork
Bitcoin Mechanic |
Matthew Cratter |
Miners that may or may not work with BIP110
What miners work with BIP110 ?
Heres a list of miners being tested put out by Luke Dashjr on Google Docs
Heres a list of miners being tested put out by Luke Dashjr on Google Docs
The good and the bad about Bitcoin-BLAKE2b
The bad:
1. You lose a large part of the network effect.
2. The price probably takes a massive hit initially — potentially 80–99%.
3. You lose access to the existing ecosystem of software and hardware wallets until they add support (if at all).
4. You won’t be able to run Lightning nodes initially, until someone forks/adapts an existing implementation or builds a new one.
5. Trading it initially might be pretty cumbersome. It all depends on exchanges adopting it.
6. You get to be called a shitcoiner by literal shitcoiners and retarded Bitcoiners.
The good:
1. All users who want to participate initially have to run their own nodes — a huge boom for decentralisation.
2. The low price gives you the chance to buy a bunch of coins for non-life-changing amounts or pick up a few mining rigs.
3. The low price gives you the opportunity/confidence to learn, experiment and build your own tools.
4. Someone might build an actually good wallet (basically all current ones except Sparrow are trash).
5. Someone might actually build a non-retarded Lightning node client.
6. We get to build an ecosystem around widely available, general-purpose hardware rather than relying exclusively on the existing third-party infrastructure.
7. We get a changed PoW algorithm and a redesigned block header intended to make mining more efficient, harder to centralize at the hardware level, and easier to evolve in the future.
8. We get rid of the scammers, spammers and suits for at least a few years while we get to build our defences and robust mitigations.
9. If no exchanges list the fork, we get to work on our P2P exchange network, with the added benefit of better privacy and no mandatory KYC.
10. We get to use Bitcoin as intended — as internet money — while we work with laser focus on improving its quality as rivalrous digital commodity and an open monetary system.
1. You lose a large part of the network effect.
2. The price probably takes a massive hit initially — potentially 80–99%.
3. You lose access to the existing ecosystem of software and hardware wallets until they add support (if at all).
4. You won’t be able to run Lightning nodes initially, until someone forks/adapts an existing implementation or builds a new one.
5. Trading it initially might be pretty cumbersome. It all depends on exchanges adopting it.
6. You get to be called a shitcoiner by literal shitcoiners and retarded Bitcoiners.
The good:
1. All users who want to participate initially have to run their own nodes — a huge boom for decentralisation.
2. The low price gives you the chance to buy a bunch of coins for non-life-changing amounts or pick up a few mining rigs.
3. The low price gives you the opportunity/confidence to learn, experiment and build your own tools.
4. Someone might build an actually good wallet (basically all current ones except Sparrow are trash).
5. Someone might actually build a non-retarded Lightning node client.
6. We get to build an ecosystem around widely available, general-purpose hardware rather than relying exclusively on the existing third-party infrastructure.
7. We get a changed PoW algorithm and a redesigned block header intended to make mining more efficient, harder to centralize at the hardware level, and easier to evolve in the future.
8. We get rid of the scammers, spammers and suits for at least a few years while we get to build our defences and robust mitigations.
9. If no exchanges list the fork, we get to work on our P2P exchange network, with the added benefit of better privacy and no mandatory KYC.
10. We get to use Bitcoin as intended — as internet money — while we work with laser focus on improving its quality as rivalrous digital commodity and an open monetary system.
XBT Blake2b coin price
Check out the Blake2B - Price, Hashrate & Difficulty etc here - blakeprice
Mining BIP110 / KnotsWith the BIP110 chain split fork you could mine the BIP110 fork with a regular PC or Goldshell SC miners or Innosilicon S11 Blake2B. Sia coin miner
Also check out paulscode.com for in depth technical mining info. |
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The History
Ordinals & Runes
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As you can see, spam or allegedly valuable pictures on the block chain has become a big problem taking up to 90% of the available space, pushing up transaction fees, making running a bitcoin node more expensive. If left unchecked could undermine the value of Bitcoin. Some argue that "censoring" transactions is a slippery slope but bitcoin already has many filters & Core are now trying to remove the op-return filter. Filtering is not censoring. Bitcoin has always been money, filtering none money transactions is what it has always done.
Personally I think ordinals are at best a scam or an attempt to damage bitcoin. Miners could help filter the spam but are quite happy to take the additional revenue. The argument against is that they are valid transactions & if people want to blow money on blockchain graffiti let them, they'll run out of Bitcoin sooner or later. It's all money flowing into the Bitcoin ecosystem anyway. Have a look at mempool.space block 840121 from April 2024 with lots of spam pushing fee's up to a massive 1000 sat/byte (verses a more typical 10-40) with a total block fee reward of nearly 11BTC (in the explorer hover over the transaction blocks to reveal the type), over 50% are op-return junk pictures. |
Core Version 30 vs Knots
CSAM (illegal rude pictures) are a problem for open networks. Allowing anyone to put whatever pictures they want on the block chain could have Legal repercussions for node runners. Core are increasing the op-return filter size from 83 Bytes to 100 KB making it much easier to upload large images. Core made the unpopular change not Knots
Enemies of Bitcoin could deliberately put illegal content easily on the block chain. Node runners would be obliviously re-distributing CSAM hence potentially inviting Legal repercussions.
If Core was infiltrated, allowing attack vectors may be a great way to break bitcoin. Bitcoin is always under attack this may be a new vector. I advise not upgrading from V29 or run Knots/ BIP110 until Core come to their senses or become irrelevant.
Enemies of Bitcoin could deliberately put illegal content easily on the block chain. Node runners would be obliviously re-distributing CSAM hence potentially inviting Legal repercussions.
If Core was infiltrated, allowing attack vectors may be a great way to break bitcoin. Bitcoin is always under attack this may be a new vector. I advise not upgrading from V29 or run Knots/ BIP110 until Core come to their senses or become irrelevant.
Filtering vs Censoring
Your emails are filtered. We accept filtering because we do not want to see 1000's of junk emails or 500GB files. The filters are not perfect but stop the vast majority of junk.
If basic filters were to be removed, the spammers would be emboldened to send even more spam as they would know you have no filter. The same would be true for CSAM on the Blockchain. Removing the filters invites more CSAM.
Having to store vast amounts of none monetary data requires upgrading the hardware hence more expense which node runners may not be prepared to do, further degrading the network.
Censoring = a deliberate attempt to stop something I.E. a bulk email from a particular political party.
If basic filters were to be removed, the spammers would be emboldened to send even more spam as they would know you have no filter. The same would be true for CSAM on the Blockchain. Removing the filters invites more CSAM.
Having to store vast amounts of none monetary data requires upgrading the hardware hence more expense which node runners may not be prepared to do, further degrading the network.
Censoring = a deliberate attempt to stop something I.E. a bulk email from a particular political party.
Incentives
Who can filter these "transactions" ?
Bitcoin Core
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Miners
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Node Operators
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Fix the filters debate
The worst thing about this debate is it can be very technical requiring a good level of understanding of how Bitcoin works. Unless you are running a node or have been studying BTC for a few years I would leave this one to the experts. Nobody apart from spammers want spam on the network.
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@GrassFedBitcoin of Ocean.xyz mining pool, talks about this in depth on the. Ocean is a pool that rejects ordinals and runes by default so a great one to join if you mine bitcoin & are opposed to rubbish clogging the block chain.
Practically all Bitcoiners are against spam. How to fix it is a different matter there are 2 basic camps- A - Fix the filters - or more specifically leave the op-return filter as it has been for many years (no op-returns greater than 83 bytes). Try to keep out everything that is not a monetary transaction. Supporters include - @giacomozucco B - Sort it once an for all - BIP110 Knots @hodlanaut, @dathon_ohm, @GrassFedBitcoin @LukeDashjr @Leo_haf @saifedean C - Let transaction fees be the filter - Block space costs. The fuller the blocks the more block space costs hence less incentive to spam the chain. Spam is self limiting, but takes up block space, its there for ever & makes node more difficult / expensive to run. The reason Bitcoin is virtually impossible to shut down is decentralization. Making nodes harder to run will stop regular people running them, hence lessening the decentralization. So the bad effects may not be seen for years but are very real. James @Lopp, Adam Back, @adam3us, @callebtc, @TheBlueMatt, @MrHodl @Lopp has said reinstating the op-return 83byte filter would adversely affect some "edge case uses" I.E. Citrea's business operations. Lopp (& Adam Back) just happens to be an investor in citrea.xyz 🤔. Proof that Core insiders are trying to change Bitcoin to suit their business interest. Both sides of the debate are Bitcoin OG's, long term heavy weights, with a excellent track records who have probably forgotten more than most will ever know, so its been really difficult to pick a side. |
Hear what the Core developer Much @murchandamus has to say below. Always listen to both sides of the argument. |
Conclusion
For me - Bitcoin is about separation of money and state, it has to be BIP110. Any other use case will introduce vulnerabilities.
Node runners have the ultimate say. They can run any software they like and they do not like storing data for free for businesses for ever. Continually tinkering with the Bitcoin algorithm could introduce vulnerabilities. Capture of Core has done just this. We certainly should not be altering it to suit business interests.
Node runners have the ultimate say. They can run any software they like and they do not like storing data for free for businesses for ever. Continually tinkering with the Bitcoin algorithm could introduce vulnerabilities. Capture of Core has done just this. We certainly should not be altering it to suit business interests.
Removing Ordinals & Runes
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BitcoinKnots is purpose built variation of Bitcoin Core designed to deal with the spam problem. More here wtfhappenedinfeb2023.com
Nodes are now incorporating the option to use Core or Knots giving node operators the ability to choose. This battle may ultimately be decided by the node operators. View the percentage of nodes using Bitcoin Knots |
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Kill Ordinals & Runes using Bitcoin core This setting switches off the ability to store the additional data (the ordinal/rune) , here it's shown set to zero bytes but if this doesn't work try setting to 1 bytes.
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