Blake2b Fork Live, Replay Risk Flagged
The Blake2b hard fork of the BIP-110 minority chain activated at block height 961,640 — earlier than expected, around August 30, with its backers preserving the running chain — and has since produced blocks roughly 3.6 times faster than its ten-minute schedule, implying about 780 TH/s of hashrate, which one analysis estimates at 9.5% of the global Blake2b fleet built for Siacoin mining. The project's documentation confirms transactions use identical signatures on both chains, with replay protection achieved manually per transaction; coverage documented OP_RETURN-based methods. The chain's coins have no established market price and major exchange support is unconfirmed.
The Revolution Is Mining on Borrowed Machines
The chain did not freeze this time.
Blocks are coming — three and a half times faster than the schedule expects.
That speed is not enthusiasm. It is arithmetic: the difficulty was set for a guess, and more machines than the guess showed up.
Who showed up is the interesting part.
Not Bitcoin miners. Their machines cannot run the new puzzle.
The miners came from Siacoin — a storage coin that happens to use the same puzzle. About a tenth of that fleet switched over.
So the revolution is being mined by another coin's hardware, moonlighting.
Two things remain unbuilt. A price — no major exchange lists the new coin. And a wall between the chains: the same signed transaction can still be valid on both, so protecting a payment means hand-crafting it.
For holders the advice is unchanged. You hold both chains automatically. Touch neither until the wall exists.
A chain that lives is not a chain that matters. But it earned the next question — which is what the price says when someone finally quotes one.
Multi-media snippets
BIP 110 rules implemented to prevent replay attacks on Blake2b chain
Recommendation to use Shrike wallet for Blake2b transactions
Risk of inadvertently sending Blake2b Bitcoin to exchanges during replay attacks
What is a Bitcoin replay attack and how it occurs
Practical demonstration of building and signing replay-protected transactions
Method to prevent replay attacks using OP_RETURN in transactions
7 sources
- BIP 110 rules implemented to prevent replay attacks on Blake2b chain · youtube.com · T2
- Recommendation to use Shrike wallet for Blake2b transactions · youtube.com · T2
- Risk of inadvertently sending Blake2b Bitcoin to exchanges during replay attacks · youtube.com · T2
- What is a Bitcoin replay attack and how it occurs · youtube.com · T2
- CROWDFUNDINSIDER: Bitcoin Improvement Proposal : BIP-110 Fork Restarts After Stall, Shrinks Block Sizes to 300 KB · crowdfundinsider.com · T2
- Practical demonstration of building and signing replay-protected transactions · youtube.com · T2
- Method to prevent replay attacks using OP_RETURN in transactions · youtube.com · T2