Simple Mining, an Iowa-based operation, made things more complicated by mining block 961634 on the main chain. He basically said a miracle would be needed for the minority chain to surpass the main chain. Without one of those, the minority chain keeps falling behind at the same difficulty level that the main chain handles without breaking a sweat. Getting large pools to defect to a minority fork that’s already 18 blocks down is a tough sell. Supporters, led by mining pool Roughnecks, activated the fork at block height 961632, splitting from the main Bitcoin chain.