Segwit2x Fork Summary- Not Just Another Bitcoin Fork in the Road
The Segwit2x Fork Summary: The New York Agreement, also known as Segwit2x, was planned for mid-November but ended up dead on arrival. Now it’s back… But will it work this time? Is the Segwit2x Fork Summary we’re publishing an obituary or the sign of things to come?
The news came out back on December 16th that at block 501451 the Segwit2x Fork will take place which is estimated to happen tomorrow based on the current pace.
This fork is not the same as the one originally intended but has a lot in common. The overall goal was – and indeed is – to make Bitcoin more efficient in terms of completing transactions. These days there are frequent complaints of Bitcoin transactions taking minutes to sometimes hours to complete which Segwit2X is supposed to solve. That’s due to the increased block size to 4MB (compared to 1MB for original Bitcoin). It also cuts down block production time from 10 minutes to just 150 seconds. Other anticipated features include the long-awaited Lightning Network as well as anonymous transactions expected sometime in 2018. The Segwit2x Fork Summary – IT SHOULD ROCK!
This Bitcoin fork raises some questions as to how Segwit2x developers plan to redistribute the original coins from the very beginning of bitcoin that are assumed to belong to the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Nakamoto (if there is such a person) is assumed to be in control of just around one million bitcoins, which will be redistributed to current Bitcoin holders proportionate to their current holdings. While seemingly altruistic in rewarding progressives in the Bitcoin world, I remain skeptical.
The one thing promising is that every holder of Bitcoin gets new coin equal to their current positions at the time the fork happens.
This fork is just the next evolutionary step with many Bitcoin forks behind it. Since the Bitcoin Gold fork back in October, other Bitcoin pretenders such as Bitcoin Silver, Bitcoin Platinum, and others which never managed to gain any traction. The Segwit2x fork is anticipated to be supported by a number of exchanges on day one including Yobit and HitBtc among others.
Segwit2x Fork Summary: We’re not totally convinced it’s going to happen but if it does we expect excellent outcomes.
