# Bitcoin Developers Warn That Selling Coins From This Weekend's Contested Fork Could Cost Holders Real Bitcoin

Mandatory signaling for the BIP-110 (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110) soft fork begins near block 961,632 around August 9, with actual miner support collapsing to roughly 2.5 percent, far below the 7-to-15 percent range projected earlier, and without replay protection, selling coins from a minority chain risks also moving the same coins on the main chain.

- Published: 2026-08-08T05:21:19.777Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/2026-08-08/bitcoin-developers-warn-that-selling-coins-from-this-weekend
- Publisher: Polylog (Global desk)
- Section: crypto
- Sources: [CoinDesk](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/08/08/bitcoin-holders-risk-losing-real-btc-if-they-sell-coins-from-bip-110-fork-says-developer), [AMINA Bank Research](https://aminagroup.com/research/bitcoin-fork-august-2026-bip-110-ecash-covenants-and-the-quantum-clock/), [Coin Gabbar](https://www.coingabbar.com/en/crypto-currency-news/bitcoin-news-today-2026-hardfork-move-splits-market-view)

Bitcoin traded at roughly $64,940 on Friday, up about 0.8 percent over 24 hours, as developers warned holders about a specific mechanical risk arriving this weekend. If a minority chain emerges from the contested BIP-110 change, anyone who sells the coins that appear on that chain may hand a buyer a signed transaction that can be rebroadcast on the main bitcoin network, moving the seller's actual bitcoin. [CoinDesk reported](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/08/08/bitcoin-holders-risk-losing-real-btc-if-they-sell-coins-from-bip-110-fork-says-developer) that a developer's advice is to take no action until the two chains can be separated.

BIP-110, described by its author as a Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, would impose seven limits on the data that can be embedded in bitcoin transactions for one year. It targets the inscription and token practices built on top of the network. Mandatory signaling begins near block 961,632, expected around August 9, and runs through block 963,647, with lock-in requiring 55 percent of blocks in the period to carry the signal. An [earlier research note from AMINA Bank](https://aminagroup.com/research/bitcoin-fork-august-2026-bip-110-ecash-covenants-and-the-quantum-clock/) had projected signaling in the range of 7 to 15 percent, but real-time monitoring cited by [CoinDesk](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/08/06/why-bitcoin-s-bip-110-refuses-to-die-despite-near-zero-miner-support) put actual support at about 2.5 percent as the mandatory window opened, far short even of that earlier estimate and nowhere close to the 55 percent needed for lock-in. Nearly all of the signaling blocks come from a single mining pool, Ocean, which began signaling by default in mid-July, so the support does not reflect a broad base among miners.

The proposal has divided large holders and developers, with [Michael Saylor among the public critics](https://www.coingabbar.com/en/crypto-currency-news/bitcoin-news-today-2026-hardfork-move-splits-market-view) of the hard-fork route. With the 55 percent threshold effectively out of reach, developer Luke Dashjr has said that changing bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism, a far more disruptive step than the contested soft fork, would be the only path left for BIP-110's supporters, and another developer has rebased Dashjr's earlier hard-fork code as a contingency, [according to reporting on the dispute](https://www.tftc.io/bip-110-pow-hard-fork-dashjr-block-961632). The disagreement is about what bitcoin is for: whether block space should be reserved for monetary transfers or remain open to arbitrary data.

The episode is a reminder that a monetary asset without an issuer settles its rule changes through coordination among users, miners and exchanges rather than by decree. That is the design's core property and also the source of this weekend's risk.

## What this means

The immediate exposure is operational rather than macroeconomic. Exchanges and custodians that credit fork coins without implementing replay protection can cause customers to lose bitcoin on the main chain, and the firms carrying that liability are the venues themselves. A clean activation or a quiet failure to reach the signaling threshold leaves the market unchanged, while a persistent chain split forces every exchange, miner and payment processor to choose which ledger they treat as bitcoin, and that choice determines where mining power and trading activity settle.

## What to watch

- Whether node signaling rises materially above the current 7 to 15 percent range in the days around block 961,632, which is the practical measure of whether the change activates or lapses.
- Announcements from major exchanges on whether they will list, credit or halt withdrawals of fork coins, because that determines whether ordinary holders face replay risk at all.
- Bitcoin's hash rate, the total computing power miners devote to the network, and how it splits after the signaling window, since a sustained divide in mining power is what turns a governance dispute into two competing networks.