A little more over two weeks after the activation of SegWit2X, which we have discussed here on previous occasions, we will share some considerations about what has been their performance to date. SegWit2X, the abbreviated form of Segregated Witness 2X, is probably the most important protocol renewal so far in Bitcoin’s trajectory. With the latest adoption of SegWit, the rates achieved a respite, but began to increase again.
SegWit was first suggested by Pieter Wuille in 2015, who was recently praised as one of the most predominant Bitcoin helpers in 2017 in recognized media related to Bitcoin activity.
This technology addressed several of Bitcoin’s most pressing disadvantages, and one of them was the prominent value of the transfers. The reorganization of the data placement in the present blocks of the Bitcoin blockchain is one of the most relevant aspects. This seeks to facilitate a larger proportion of transfers passing through the network at any given time. In addition, the optimization of the security and efficiency of the protocol, to improve aspects such as the malleability and the long-term scalability of Bitcoin.
SegWit2X addresses generally differ from traditional Bitcoin inherited addresses when starting normally with number 3. For the most users, legacy addresses start with number one, and are widely used by a large number of Bitcoin exchanges and wallets.
Among the adopters of SegWit2X we can mention ConGate who adopted it on December 23, 2017, as well as LocalBitcoins.com that communicated on Twitter that SeGwit had established on January 2, 2018.
Although it was officially announced in August 2017, it was not until the first week of January 2018 that SegWit2X was adopted more extensively. The certainly slowed down start, although prolongued problems of Bitcoin, was essential for many wallets to facilitate the adoption of SegWit2X. Experts agree that the most widespread adoption of this fork will help Bitcoin get to the use of transfers of two to 4 megabytes for every ten minutes that it manages to admit at present.
While the SegWit2X implementation is still slow, Bitcoin averages about 1.1MB, illustrating the slow speeds that users are currently experiencing.
The SegWit2X protocol is compatible with previous versions of Bitcoin, and also supports future growth and system updates. Everything seems to indicate that SegWit will continue to be a key aspect of Bitcoin’s blockchain network for the foreseeable future, with a greater acceptance needed to ensure that transaction fees are further reduced.
The advantages of this kind of improvements at times like the current ones in which Bitcoin processing problems have caused a bottleneck tremendously difficult to cope with, will be welcomed by the entire crypto community.
