By
Steve Muchoki
April 23rd, 2024
During November 2017, a block between 1MB and 2MB in size will be generated by Bitcoin miners in a move to increase network capacity.
The developers behind Segwit2x, a plan to handle signature data separately and to increase the block size limit to 2MB, are to announce a firm date for a hard fork.
Now, the post that is published on a website related to the project, reads:
“During the month of November 2017, approximately 90 days after the activation of Segregated Witnesses in the Bitcoin blockchain, a block between 1MB and 2MB in size will be generated by Bitcoin miners in a move to increase network capacity. At this point it is expected that more than 90% of the computational capacity that secures the Bitcoin network will carry on mining on top of this large block.”
Segwit2x is an agreement reached at Bitcoin Roundtable Consensus in Hong-Kong on February 2016, and then ratified on May 2017 by the Bitcoin Scaling Agreement in New York (also known as the New York Agreement (NYA) which is said to be a compromise between the two sides — those who want to achieve scaling through Segregated Witness and those who prefer to scale by increasing the block size).
All in all, SegWit2x seeks to upgrade bitcoin in two following ways:
- It would enact the long-proposed code optimization Segregated Witness (SegWit), which alters the way some data is stored on the network.
- It would set a timeline for increasing the network’s block size from today’s 1MB, to be triggered about three months after the SegWit activation (scheduled on August 23 2017).
The working group says, now that Segwit has locked-in, the ecosystem should update to Segwit-compatible software if they want to benefit from the protocol:
Bitcoin clients that are not currently SegWit-compatible and wish to benefit from the new type of transaction must perform extensive upgrades to various subsystems, including changes to transaction serialization, signature hash computation, block weight calculation, scripting engine, block validation, a new address scheme, and P2P protocol upgrades. Fortunately Segregated Witness compatibility is opt-in, and existing Simplifed Payment Verification (SPV) wallets and full nodes are expected to continue working without changes after SegWit activates.
Alongside this, the post contains the “readiness checklist” informing about preparation for the fork including port changes, network changes, DNS seeds, and the Segwit2x “Testnet5.”
The November 2017 upgrade to 2MB blocks is a hard-fork, but necessary changes are trivial to perform.
Some SPV clients are expected to work without any change at all. Most clients will need to tweak only two constants to remain compatible with the new larger blocks.
According to some, Segwit2x, in case enacted, could result in a second hard fork of the bitcoin network in 2017, which could also lead to the creation of another version of the bitcoin blockchain and its own new cryptocurrency.
If turn to the nature of a controversial SegWit plan, some believe that it helps only soothe some of the current pain points and consider it as a band aid, at best. Some believe that far bigger challenges are on the horizon. Alsoit’s often said that in some ways, Bitcoin has become a victim of its own success. This leader of cryptocurrencies has grown at a phenomenal rate, and, as a result, it’s been taking so much time to complete payment processes that the prospect of Bitcoin turning into mainstream payment mechanism has been put into question.
Meanwhile, at press time the token is traded at $4336.06 price, with market cap surpassing that of the PayPal, according to ZeroHedge, constituting $71,6B, The total market cap of the all cryptocurencies listed makes $142B, as shown by coinmarketcap.com.