Bitcoin's upgrade path remains frozen after Drivechain creator Paul Sztorc said the network cannot activate any soft fork for the foreseeable future. Every proposed soft fork since Taproot went live in November 2021 has failed to activate, according to Sztorc, CEO of LayerTwo Labs.
The latest failure came with BIP-110, a temporary soft fork designed to restrict some non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions. It drew only 51 supporting blocks in a 2,016-block difficulty period, or 2.53% miner signaling. BIP-110 enforcing nodes split at block 961,632 on Aug. 8, produced just two blocks and stalled by Aug. 9, while the main chain moved 111 blocks ahead. The proposal required 55% block signaling and had become mathematically unreachable by Aug. 2. Sztorc said even OP_CAT, described as a 13-line code change present in Bitcoin's original software, cannot overcome the coordination barrier.
Drivechains, proposed under BIP 300, would move experimentation to opt-in sidechains with two-way pegs, but Sztorc acknowledged that BIP 300 itself still requires a Bitcoin consensus change. Under the proposal, miners would vote on withdrawals, creating a security model dependent on sidechain fee revenue. '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,' Sztorc said.
Separately, Michael Saylor commented after the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on September 15, with a 50-49 vote short of the 60-vote threshold. Four Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the bill. Saylor said he expects the SEC, CFTC and U.S. Treasury to advance rules under existing law, and for banks to expand Bitcoin custody and Bitcoin-backed lending. He pointed to the already enacted GENIUS Act as a potential catalyst for stablecoin adoption, arguing that progress need not wait for Congress. Bitcoin traded below $76,000 after the Senate setback, according to market reports.
