While no formal announcement has been made, murmurs of a potential Bitcoin fork are emerging amidst discussions on block space, Ordinal inscriptions, and escalating fees.
Mid-December 2023 saw the term "bitcoin fork" hit the peak of Google Trends scores globally, signaling heightened interest and concern.
On Dec. 23, advocate Adam Simecka asserted that Ordinal inscriptions are a "scam", causing division among bitcoiners, and predicted that this trend "will result in a hard-fork (a new version of Bitcoin) that will eventually fail."
As of Dec. 23, 2023, a backlog of 291,660 unconfirmed bitcoin transactions exists. The current cost for transferring bitcoin stands at 81 satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB) or $4.97 per transaction. Comparatively, fees were much higher on Dec. 16, 2023, when the rate was 674 sat/vB, equating to $40 per transfer.
https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-fork-discussions-surface-over-block-space-constraints-and-ordinals/