This bitcoin miner rejected BIP-110 despite mining through a pool that supported it
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Summary
A bitcoin miner identified as Simple Mining declined to support the controversial Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110) despite mining through the Ocean pool, which had signaled support for it. Using Ocean's DATUM protocol, Simple Mining produced block 961,634 on the main bitcoin chain without signaling for BIP-110, which aimed to restrict non-financial data in transactions.
Why it matters
This refusal highlights that BIP-110 had only about 2.6% of hashrate support, far below the 55% threshold required to enforce the proposal. The split caused by BIP-110 resulted in a minority fork that stalled quickly, while the main bitcoin chain continued advancing, showing the proposal lacked sufficient backing to affect the network.
Key context
BIP-110 sought to prevent the inclusion of non-financial data such as pictures and text in bitcoin transactions for a year. Mining pools usually control which transactions enter blocks and which software signals the blocks carry, but Ocean's DATUM protocol allowed individual miners like Simple Mining to choose independently. Despite Ocean pool's default to signal for BIP-110, miners using DATUM could opt out, resulting in conflicting signals from the same pool during the fork.
Key numbers and entities
Key entities include Simple Mining (the miner rejecting BIP-110), the Ocean mining pool, and the DATUM protocol. The critical block numbers involved are 961,632 (when rejection of non-signaling blocks started) and 961,634 (the block mined by Simple Mining without BIP-110 support). BIP-110 support peaked at 2.6%, well below the 55% goal. As of Monday following the fork, the main chain had reached block 961,725, placing the BIP-110 fork about 200 blocks behind.
What remains unclear
The source does not flag open questions or uncertainties regarding the consequences or future developments related to the BIP-110 fork or miner decisions.