The Bitcoin Beacon
The BIP-110 splinter chain drops the ASIC for the BLAKE2b algorithm so ordinary computers can mine — and its champion has quit the OCEAN pool to chase it.
GLOBAL — On Tuesday, September 1, a breakaway chain descended from Bitcoin is due to do something the main network never has: change the algorithm that secures it. The BIP-110 fork, long championed by developer Luke Dashjr, is switching its proof-of-work from SHA-256d to BLAKE2b — a function today’s bitcoin mining machines physically cannot run.
The point of the switch is to make specialized mining hardware worthless on the new chain. BLAKE2b is meant to be mined on ordinary CPUs and GPUs, and Dashjr says it removes ASICBoost, an optimization that hands the largest industrial miners an efficiency edge. In his telling, returning block production to general-purpose computers is the only way to decentralize mining away from a handful of warehouse-scale operators.
He is now betting his career on it. Dashjr has resigned as chairman and chief technology officer of the mining pool OCEAN, which repurchased his equity, and is launching a new venture, CONVOY, that he frames as a second attempt at decentralized mining. OCEAN’s hashrate fell 96% over August as the split played out.
The obstacles are steep. BLAKE2b requires a 164-byte block header, double the 80-byte header that virtually every existing light client, block explorer, indexer and wallet expects — so software across the ecosystem would break on the new chain until rebuilt. Replay protection, which stops a transaction on one chain from being duplicated on the other, is only opt-in, leaving ordinary holders exposed to confusion. And security is the open question: Dashjr’s design needs roughly 870 TH/s of mining power to hold a steady block interval, while the testnet rehearsal has mobilized only 50 to 70 TH/s.
Anyone can copy Bitcoin’s code and change its rules. Almost no one has to follow — and so far, almost no one is.
The reaction from bitcoin’s technical establishment has been dismissive. Adam Back called BIP-110 “idiocracy” in July. David Schwartz, formerly Ripple’s chief technology officer, waved away the claim that Bitcoin is under attack as nonsense. The original soft-fork version of BIP-110 mustered only two blocks before miners quietly declined to signal for it — the boycott that pushed Dashjr toward a clean break.
That history is the real story. Bitcoin’s consensus is not defended by a committee vote; it is defended by the miners, nodes and businesses that keep running the existing rules and ignore the ones they reject. A fork can change any parameter it likes. What it cannot manufacture is participation.
Why it matters: the episode is a live demonstration of how Bitcoin actually resists change — not by forbidding forks, but by starving the ones the network won’t follow.
The September 1 fork date, the SHA-256d→BLAKE2b switch, the ASICBoost point, Dashjr’s OCEAN resignation and equity buyback, the CONVOY launch, OCEAN’s 96% August hashrate drop, the 164-byte header incompatibility, opt-in replay protection, the ~870 TH/s requirement versus 50–70 TH/s on testnet, and the Back/Schwartz remarks are per the reporting above. Figures for a live, contested fork will shift; treat them as of publication. Informational only — not financial advice.
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