Paul Sztorc, founder and CEO of LayerTwo Labs and a longtime Bitcoin (BTC) developer, is building a new Bitcoin hard fork, expected to activate at block height 964,000 in August 2026. The new coin, eCash, is designed to allow developers to build separate networks (called sidechains) on top of Bitcoin without changing Bitcoin's core code. The eCash network is built as a near-copy of Bitcoin Core and will fork from Bitcoin through a one-time difficulty reset to its minimum value. Mining activity on the new chain will be high and chaotic in the early days before it stabilizes. The launch client will be frozen 30 days before the fork date.