Luke Dashjr's ambitious attempt to change Bitcoin through a hard fork launched on September 1 has failed spectacularly. Instead of the expected network overhaul, the new chain based on the BLAKE2b algorithm received only a negligible share of computational power. Blockstream CEO Adam Back, known for his skepticism, summed it up in one phrase: "Live by the fork, die by the fork."
Dashjr's initiative, a well-known Bitcoin Core developer, was to create an alternative network that, in his view, was supposed to rid Bitcoin of "junk" data in blocks. His BIP-110 proposal involved removing all non-financial transactions, which, according to the author's design, would restore the ability to mine on ordinary computers. However, the market and miners regarded this step as an unnecessary stir.
Why the new network did not take off
Technically, Dashjr took a radical step by replacing SHA-256 with BLAKE2b. This automatically made all specialized equipment (ASICs), on which the industry relies, useless for the new chain. Miners, who had invested millions in hardware, showed no interest whatsoever in the fork. Already in August, a similar branch with BIP-110 lasted only two blocks before miners from the OCEAN pool, without explicit consent, redirected their power back to the main network.
As a result, the hash rate of the new chain collapsed almost immediately after launch. Even Dashjr himself continues to insist that his branch is the "real" Bitcoin, claiming that the BTC ticker belonged to the original network for more than ten years, and now it has "moved" to BLAKE2b. However, network data suggests otherwise.
Market reaction: silence and emptiness
Traders did not notice the fork. The main Bitcoin network operated without issues, and BTC traded around $76,900. Major exchanges did not even list the new coin. The only exception was a small test platform that opened order acceptance under the ticker BTCB2 — the new network does not yet have an official designation.
Liquidity on that platform turned out to be negligible. Buy orders for BTCB2 did not rise above $82 — roughly 900 times less than Bitcoin's price. The cheapest sell order is valued at $190. Such a gap of 131.7% between the bid and ask price speaks volumes: there is virtually no real trading, and interest in the asset is purely speculative.
Dashjr made similar statements in August through his Bitcoin Knots project, but then former Ripple CTO David Schwartz openly called them nonsense. This story once again demonstrates that even authoritative developers cannot impose changes on the community if they are not backed by economic incentives. In my analysis, the failure of this fork is not just a technical setback but a clear signal of the industry consolidating around the current Bitcoin protocol, which has already become the de facto standard.