September 1 Bitcoin Hard Fork: What Holders Need to Know

Luke Dashjr stepped down from his roles as chairman and CTO of Bitcoin mining pool OCEAN. The hard fork he supports is set to separate from the main Bitcoin chain on Tuesday.

OCEAN also bought back all of Dashjr's equity. He now refers to the main Bitcoin chain as "Spamcoin." On Tuesday, the hard fork he supports will change to the BLAKE2b mining algorithm, which is incompatible with current Bitcoin hardware.

Why Dashjr Departed from OCEAN

This departure ends a difficult month for the pool. OCEAN's computational power dropped by 96% in August. The pool had directed customer hashrate to a minority chain for roughly 18 hours. Miners did not provide explicit consent and called for changes in leadership.

BIP-110, the anti-spam soft fork that Dashjr advocated for, required 55% support from miners. The highest level of signaling reached 2.53%. The chain stopped after two blocks, leading supporters to reorganize around a September breakaway coin instead.

Details of Dashjr's Bitcoin Hard Fork Proposal

According to Dashjr, Bitcoin's decentralized block construction was lost years ago. He claims that BLAKE2b eliminates the ASICBoost shortcut, which gives large miners a competitive advantage. He also states that it penalizes concentrated mining power.

Critics disagree with this interpretation. In July, Adam Back had already labeled BIP-110 as idiocracy. David Schwartz, formerly Ripple's CTO, rejected the claim that the network was under attack as nonsense.

Spamcoin isn't Bitcoin and operates under centralized management, just like the US dollar, but worse.

Spamcoin does not allow miners to build their own template.

DATUM has no purpose on Spamcoin. Claiming it decentralizes anything is false advertising.

— Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) August 30, 2026

Dashjr claims that the main chain operates under centralized management and prevents miners from creating their own templates. He is now directing that effort into CONVOY, which he describes as a second attempt at decentralized mining. OCEAN, however, continues to function as a non-custodial pool.

BTC on September 1: What to Expect

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $77,655, down 0.59% for the day. However, it has still risen 23.3% this month. Hashrate has been declining throughout the year as miners exit the network to pursue AI contracts. This trend reduces the number of machines available for any breakaway chain to attract.

Holders now have two practical concerns: replay risk and which chain their wallet will follow. Dashjr advises using a light wallet instead of a full node. These issues already arose during the August chain split.

A change in proof-of-work results in the creation of a separate coin. The market then determines which chain retains value.

Dashjr's earlier fork attempt did not manage to gain more than 3% support. Tuesday thus tests a single question: either actual hashrate moves to BLAKE2b, or the split will mirror the August stall and halt within hours.