A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal for the post-quantum signature scheme SHRINCS has been published, putting a concrete Bitcoin-focused option into the debate over how the network could defend itself against future quantum attacks. The proposal comes from research led by Blockstream, whose team has already tested SHRINCS in production on the Liquid sidechain. Blockstream Research’s Jonas Nick described it as the first concrete post-quantum signature proposal designed specifically for Bitcoin, while also stressing that it is not meant to be Bitcoin’s final signature system and is not optimal in every respect. The core appeal is size. Existing post-quantum schemes endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology are far larger than Bitcoin’s current ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, creating a major throughput problem if deployed directly on-chain. SHRINCS is still much bigger than Schnorr, but materially smaller than many alternatives, and Blockstream’s estimates suggest Bitcoin could still run at roughly 3 transactions per second under SHRINCS, versus 0.5 TPS for ML-DSA and 0.36 TPS for SPHINCS+. The catch is that SHRINCS is still early. Its BIP says the security proof remains unfinished, and the design introduces statefulness, signature growth over time, and a large fallback recovery path if a signing device is lost. Blockstream is also exploring lattice-based signatures and zero-knowledge proof aggregation, which it estimates could lift Bitcoin throughput to 6.7 TPS if combined with SHRINCS.

ChainFeeds Research’s latest PRO edition surveys a wide stretch of crypto protocol work, led by Ethereum’s Hegotá upgrade priorities and a new analysis of Block-Level Access List, or BAL, pricing under EIP-7999. Ethlabs argues Hegotá should stay focused on a small set of issues tied to Ethereum’s long-term competitiveness, placing FOCIL and Quick Slots at the top of the list while also backing native account abstraction through EIP-8141 Frame Transactions and a more careful approach to scaling via resource pricing and propagation improvements rather than simply raising the gas limit. The issue also tracks Bitcoin protocol discussions. It highlights sipa’s proposal for handling larger post-quantum cryptography witness data without introducing another transaction identifier, a disclosed reorg attack risk affecting LND versions before 0.20.0, and a proposal by Jean Pablo to formalize the rawtr() output script descriptor in a BIP. On the research side, Fei Wu uses data from February through May 2026 to argue BAL should be priced as a byproduct of execution and state access instead of as a standalone resource. Other featured work includes Ethereum PoS head-vote timing research, a zero-bridge cross-chain exchange design called BTCP, a roundup from The MEV Letter #150, and a machine-learning paper on early detection of fraudulent memecoins on Solana.

Bitcoin’s BIP-110 soft fork stalled within hours after launch last weekend, with the minority chain producing just one more block before freezing and drifting farther behind the main chain. Roughnecks, which had rallied support for the proposal, later said it would stop mining and asked other miners to step back for now. Ocean, the pool that served as the main signaling base, saw its hash rate fall from about 36 EH/s to 1.25 EH/s over the weekend, leaving it far below the proposal’s 55% lock-in threshold. The episode has also drawn attention to a basic point about Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, or BIPs: almost anyone can submit one. Under BIP 3, which took effect in 2025 and replaced BIP 2 after nine years, a proposal starts with discussion on the bitcoindev mailing list, moves into a formal draft, and then goes to the bitcoin/bips repository as a pull request. Editors check scope and formatting, assign numbers, and merge qualifying drafts, but they do not judge whether an idea is good policy. What decides whether a BIP advances comes later. The article breaks that process into three hurdles: editorial acceptance, rough consensus across developers and users, and then actual network activation. BIP-110, while formally registered and technically implementable, ran into the harder part — winning broad support and economic adoption.

Bitcoin split into two chains at block height 961632 on the night of Aug. 7, after nodes running BIP-110 software began rejecting blocks that did not signal support for the proposal. AntPool mined the first standard block at that height and remained on the main network, while a miner working through Ocean produced an alternative block that the BIP-110 chain followed. Eight hours later, the minority chain had advanced only to block 961633, with just two blocks mined in total. Over the same period, Bitcoin’s main chain had reached block 961681, a lead of 48 blocks. The article argues that the fork had effectively failed on technical grounds in less than a day. BIP-110, formally titled “Reduced Data Temporary Softfork,” sought to temporarily restrict non-financial data storage in Bitcoin blocks for about a year, targeting Ordinals inscriptions, BRC-20 tokens, Runes, and similar uses of transaction scripts and witness data. Supporters said these uses crowd out block space and raise costs, while critics argued that any valid transaction paying sufficient fees should be allowed. The report also highlights why the minority chain stalled, including low signaling support of 2.53% versus a 55% activation threshold, inherited main-chain difficulty, and the absence of replay protection, which it says creates risks for users who attempt to transact on the forked chain.

Bitcoin split into two branches at block 961,632 after BIP-110’s mandatory signaling phase went live, according to BlockTempo. The break was not a balanced network split but a sharp divergence in which BIP-110 nodes rejected non-signaling blocks and ended up following a minority chain. Miner support was reported at just 2.53% in the final signaling window before the split, far below the proposal’s 55% threshold. By 10 a.m. Taiwan time on Aug. 9, Bitcoin’s main chain had reached block 961,659, while the BIP-110 chain was stuck at 961,633, having produced only one additional block after the fork point. BIP-110, written by pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm, proposes a temporary soft fork called “Reduced Data Temporary Soft fork” aimed at limiting non-financial data storage on Bitcoin for roughly one year. The proposal would restrict most new output scripts to 34 bytes, cap OP_RETURN outputs at 83 bytes, limit some data pushes and witness elements to 256 bytes, temporarily restrict certain Taproot functions, and exempt UTXOs created before activation. Critics including Adam Back, Jameson Lopp, and Michael Saylor have argued that the proposal lacks technical and ecosystem consensus and could create compatibility and chain-split risks. Market reaction was limited, with BTC trading around $65,000 and showing no clear volatility after the split.

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 is nearing a key enforcement window even though public miner signaling remains below 3%, far short of the 55% level many market observers usually associate with a successful Bitcoin upgrade. Supporters say that framing misses the point because BIP-110 is structured as a user-activated soft fork rather than a miner referendum. The proposal would temporarily tighten Bitcoin’s consensus rules to make inscription methods tied to Ordinals and Runes impractical, a move backers say would reduce non-payment data on the chain and protect Bitcoin’s role as money. Critics argue the lack of miner support shows the proposal is effectively finished and maintain that Bitcoin’s fee market should decide how block space is used. If nodes running BIP-110 begin rejecting non-signaling blocks at block 961,632, the network could split into two branches, with the BIP-110 side likely starting with only a small share of total hash rate. Some bitcoin-only exchanges are planning temporary deposit and withdrawal pauses around the activation window, reflecting the risk that consensus may hinge on coordination across miners, exchanges, wallet providers, and users rather than on hash rate alone.

According to Odaily, a bitcoin wallet that had stayed dormant for about 15 years transferred nearly 50 BTC on Thursday, with the moved coins valued at roughly $3.2 million. The address in question had been inactive since it received 49.97 BTC in 2011, when the price of bitcoin was around $10. At that price, the original stash would have been worth about $500. The coins were then sent to a SegWit address. The destination address has prior on-chain history: it previously sent bitcoin to institutional brokerage FalconX and also received funds from wallets connected to Nexo and Prime Trust. The newly transferred BTC remains in that address and has not been moved further. The transaction surfaces as long-term holders review old storage arrangements after Coldcard hardware wallets suffered a major vulnerability attack. No evidence currently connects the 2011 wallet to that Coldcard vulnerability, according to the report.

Bitcoin governance is back in focus after Craig Wright renewed his criticism of the network’s current development path, arguing that the protocol should remain permanently fixed rather than evolve through upgrades backed by a small group of developers. His comments revived a long-running argument at the center of Bitcoin: whether a system built on predictable monetary rules should resist change, or retain enough flexibility to respond to security risks, shifting user needs, and technical limits. The debate goes well beyond Wright’s personal controversy. In March 2024, the UK High Court ruled that Wright was not Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto and said some of the evidence he presented had been forged. Even so, the governance question he continues to raise remains central to Bitcoin’s future. Supporters of a fixed protocol say Bitcoin’s value depends on certainty, transparent issuance, and rules that cannot be rewritten at will. Others argue that a real-world technical system cannot stop changing entirely, pointing to past upgrades such as SegWit in 2017 and Taproot in 2021. The article revisits those milestones, the 2017 split that led to Bitcoin Cash, and the broader tension between stability and adaptability. At stake is not only whether Bitcoin should change, but who has the authority to change it and how decentralized consent is formed.