Bitcoin Soft Fork Failures Signal Frozen Upgrade Process, Drivechain Creator Warns
Bitcoin has not activated a single proposed soft fork since Taproot went live in November 2021, a trend that LayerTwo Labs CEO and Drivechain creator Paul Sztorc says points to a fundamental inability to approve consensus changes for the foreseeable future. Speaking to crypto.news, Sztorc framed the recent collapse of BIP-110 as evidence of a systemic coordination failure that extends well beyond one disputed upgrade.
“All soft forks since Taproot have failed to activate, and this was no exception,” Sztorc said.
BIP-110 Collapse Illustrates Miner Signaling Deadlock
BIP-110, formally known as the Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, sought to impose seven temporary consensus restrictions for roughly one year (52,416 blocks). The rules included an 83-byte cap on OP_RETURN outputs, a 256-byte limit on certain data pushes, and constraints on some Taproot functions. Supporters such as Bitcoin Knots maintainer Luke Dashjr argued the measures would curb arbitrary data storage linked to inscriptions and keep Bitcoin focused on monetary transactions. Critics including Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back countered that the proposal could undermine Bitcoin’s neutrality by rejecting transaction structures the network currently accepts.
The proposal’s voluntary activation mechanism required 55% of blocks in a difficulty period to signal support. By August 2, that threshold had become mathematically unreachable: only 28 of the first 1,108 blocks had signaled, yielding a support rate of roughly 2.53%. When the mandatory signaling period began at block 961,632 on August 8, nodes enforcing BIP-110 began rejecting non-signaling blocks. Most miners continued building on the dominant chain, causing the minority branch to stall after producing just two blocks.
By August 9, the minority chain remained frozen at block 961,633 while the main chain advanced 111 blocks. OCEAN’s BIP-110 endpoint showed approximately 257 petahashes per second assigned to the minority branch, while Saylor estimated that 99.85% of Bitcoin’s hash power stayed with the dominant chain. The stall was exacerbated because the minority branch inherited Bitcoin’s mining difficulty of 127.48 trillion; without sufficient computing power, its miners could not quickly produce the blocks needed to trigger a difficulty adjustment.
Consensus Barrier Extends to OP_CAT and Other Proposals
Sztorc emphasized that BIP-110 is not an isolated case. Since Taproot activated at block 709,632 via the Speedy Trial process, numerous proposals — including OP_CAT, BIP-360, and others — have remained in discussion without achieving activation. OP_CAT, a 13-line opcode originally present in Bitcoin’s codebase before being disabled by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010, has garnered developer support for enabling covenants, vaults, and programmable spending conditions. Yet Sztorc argues it faces the same insurmountable coordination hurdle.
“Nothing can — not even OP_CAT, which is just 13 lines of code and was in the original software and had lots of support,”
he said when asked how BIP 300 could overcome resistance to consensus changes.
“Bitcoin cannot activate any soft forks, for the foreseeable future.”
Other proposals confront identical obstacles. BIP-360 proposes a new output type for post-quantum signatures via soft fork, offering a path for users to migrate funds to quantum-resistant addresses. Its activation would require the same broad network agreement that Sztorc believes Bitcoin can no longer achieve.
Drivechains Aim to Shift Experimentation Off the Base Layer
Drivechains, specified in BIP 300 and BIP 301, are designed to let developers test new rules and applications on opt-in sidechains rather than repeatedly seeking changes to Bitcoin’s base layer. Under the two-way peg design, users could move BTC between Bitcoin and independent sidechains, each with its own rules for privacy, smart contracts, faster transactions, or other functions. Sidechains would maintain separate brands and software, similar to existing systems like Liquid and Lightning.
“Each Drivechain will have its own brand, same as Liquid, Lightning, etc.,”
Sztorc said, comparing the model to developers launching separate altcoins.
However, Drivechains themselves require a consensus change on Bitcoin to deploy the proposed withdrawal system. Without activation, BIP 300 cannot move forward.
“It cannot,”
Sztorc said when asked how BIP 300 could overcome the resistance that stopped other proposals.
Miner-Controlled Withdrawals Remain Central Security Debate
BIP 300 assigns Bitcoin miners a pivotal role in approving withdrawals from Drivechains. Withdrawal requests would remain pending while miners vote through Bitcoin blocks; a request receiving sufficient support over the voting period could release BTC from the sidechain peg. Sztorc argues security depends on the economic value a popular sidechain creates for miners.
“If the chain is popular, it will be generating fees for miners. If this fee revenue is large, relative to the number of circulating coins on the L2, then it will be secure.”
Users would need to evaluate the relationship between sidechain fee revenue, miner incentives, and the value of BTC locked in the peg. Critics warn that miners could collude to approve invalid withdrawals, while supporters contend that attacking a profitable sidechain would destroy future fee income and damage system confidence.
U.S. Mining Operations Highlight Governance Risks
The BIP-110 episode demonstrated how American mining operations can become directly involved in Bitcoin governance disputes. Foundry USA Pool asked its mining customers to vote on BIP-110 signaling before the mandatory period, while Strategy — a U.S.-listed company and one of the largest corporate Bitcoin holders — publicly opposed the proposal through Saylor.
The failed fork also created practical risks for holders. Because BIP-110 lacked automatic replay protection, Bitcoin developer Kevin Loaec warned that a transaction sent on one branch could potentially be copied to the other, putting pre-fork coins at risk if users attempted to move or sell assets on the minority chain without first separating them. Meanwhile, BIP-110 supporters prepared code for a possible proof-of-work change that would allow the stalled branch to abandon Bitcoin’s existing mining algorithm, though developer Chris Guida described it as a contingency with no activation date set.
