On Monday, the Bitcoin network experienced a rare two-block chain reorganization as major mining pools briefly split, but the disruption was resolved quickly with no impact on users or funds. Around block height 941,880, near-simultaneous blocks led to a fork between the chain led by Foundry USA and competing branches backed by Antpool and ViaBTC. Bitcoin observer and developer b10c noted the reorganization, reporting that there was a rare two-block reorg between Foundry and Antpool+ViaBTC, with Foundry mining six blocks in a row and later seven blocks in a row.
Antpool and ViaBTC’s competing blocks were orphaned and removed from the canonical Bitcoin ledger; their transactions were not lost and were returned to the mempool for later processing. Analysts, including b10c, described the event as a normal phenomenon under proof-of-work, with no abuse, double-spending, or malfunctions. The reorganization occurred after a 7.76% drop in mining difficulty and a concurrent decline in global hashrate, factors that increased the chance of near-simultaneous block discovery. Foundry USA’s sizable share of the hashrate enabled it to add multiple blocks in succession, ultimately producing the longer chain and causing the network to converge on that version.
In such environments, larger pools tend to seize the advantage, leaving orphaned blocks for smaller competitors. The incident illustrates how the Bitcoin network, while susceptible to temporary forks, typically recovers without user-facing disruption.
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