Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr has been removed as a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal editor after developers escalated concerns over his handling of BIP 110 and the proposal’s stalled minority chain.
Summary
- Luke Dashjr was removed from the Bitcoin BIP editors after a GitHub pull request merged.
- BIP 110 is now marked Closed after its minority chain stalled following only two blocks.
- Five BIP editors remain listed in BIP 3 after Dashjr’s name was removed Monday evening.
- Dashjr rejected the allegations and called his removal an unauthorized abuse of power by Core.
- OCEAN’s BIP 110 endpoint still showed block 961,633 unchanged about 55 hours after its advance.
GitHub records show Jon Atack merged the removal request into the bitcoin/bips repository on Aug. 10.
The decision turns the removal motion covered in earlier editor dispute coverage into a completed repository change. At the time of that earlier report, the pull request remained open and Dashjr was still listed among six editors. The current BIP 3 document now lists five: Bryan Bishop, Jon Atack, Mark Erhardt, Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Ruben Somsen.
Bitcoin BIP repository removes Dashjr after editor dispute
Mark “Murch” Erhardt opened the removal motion on Aug. 9 through the Bitcoin Development Mailing List. In the thread, he alleged that Dashjr had inconsistently applied the editorial process while helping develop and promote BIP 110. Erhardt pointed to the proposal’s number assignment and a rapidly merged update as examples of what he considered preferential treatment.
Those claims remain allegations from contributors rather than findings by a formal Bitcoin governing body. Dashjr rejected them, writing that they were “false accusations” and maintaining that he had followed the BIP process consistently. Other developers, including Matt Corallo and fellow editor Olaoluwa Osuntokun, supported removal. Bryan Bishop later told the mailing list that Dashjr was no longer a permissioned user of the BIP repository.
BIP 3 describes editors as holding administrative and editorial responsibilities. Their work includes checking proposals for prior discussion, formatting and technical completeness before assigning numbers and merging them. The document explicitly says editors do not decide whether a proposal is likely to be adopted.
BIP 110 is now marked Closed after the chain stalled
The dispute developed alongside a separate change to BIP 110 itself. The current official document now lists its status as Closed. Its changelog says version 1.0.1, dated Aug. 9, marked the proposal closed “following a chain split with stalled mining.”
BIP 110 entered mandatory signaling at block 961,632 on Aug. 8 after only 51 of the preceding 2,016 blocks, or 2.53%, signaled support. Nodes enforcing its rules rejected non-signaling blocks, producing a minority branch. Roughnecks mined blocks 961,632 and 961,633, but no third block followed in the initial monitoring period, as detailed in earlier chain split coverage.
The branch remained stalled well after the BIP was marked closed. OCEAN’s BIP 110 mining endpoint still showed block 961,633 as the latest block roughly 55 hours after it was mined. Closing the BIP in the repository is therefore a documentation and process status change; it does not itself shut down nodes or miners that continue enforcing the alternative rules.
Dashjr disputes who had authority to remove him
Dashjr continued disputing the decision after losing repository access. In an X post, he said, “This is just an abuse of power by Core. They have no authority to do so.”
That description is Dashjr’s characterization of the removal. The public GitHub record shows Atack merged the pull request into the bitcoin/bips repository, while Bishop confirmed the permission change on the developer mailing list. The record reviewed for this story does not show a separate Bitcoin Core software release or protocol change removing Dashjr.
The debate also exposed a process gap. Jameson Lopp noted that there was no formal governance structure covering the management or removal of BIP editors. Antoine Riard similarly argued that BIP 1, BIP 2 and BIP 3 lacked an explicit removal procedure, even while supporting Dashjr stepping aside.
What happens next for Bitcoin’s BIP process
The immediate repository change is complete: Dashjr is no longer listed as an editor, and BIP 110 is marked Closed. The remaining question is whether contributors formalize a clearer mechanism for appointing or removing editors after the dispute exposed uncertainty over who can make such decisions.
For BIP 110, mining activity remains the practical measure to watch. The minority branch had already remained frozen at block 961,633 while the dominant Bitcoin chain continued advancing, as reported in later fork monitoring coverage. Unless miners direct materially more hash power toward the alternative branch, its existing difficulty makes continued block production slow.
