Segwit Goes Live: Why Bitcoin's Big Upgrade Is A Blockchain Game-changer - Coindesk
SegWit Goes Live: Why Bitcoin's Big Upgrade Is a Blockchain Game-Changer That's when Segregated Witness (SegWit) will activate on bitcoin late today or tomorrow morning, bringing the years-longdebate over the contentious code upgradeto an official close. At that time, users will finally be able to take advantage of the long-promised technology. Looking back, it's important to note how long the change perhaps the biggest ever made to the bitcoin software has taken. To start, the community has been embroiled in politics since SegWit was first proposed in 2015 by Bitcoin Core contributor Pieter Wuille as a possible "compromise" to the scaling debate. Since then, there's been no shortage of drama mining firm Bitmain was accused of blocking SegWit in order to boost its revenue; major bitcoin companies and mining pools united behind their own scaling plan ; and finally, unhappy with the plan, users equipped with GIFs and branded hats responded with a kind of revolt . But with SegWit soon to be guaranteed, today marks the first day it will be usable on bitcoin. Here are the key thingsthat SegWit enables: It rearranges how data is stored in bitcoin blocks. It boosts capacity while remaining compatible with past versions of the software. It removes transaction malleability, a bug that's been the primaryroadblock for many bitcoin projects. The final point is what might have the most lasting impact. Indeed, many developers believe SegWit will boost the development of more forward-looking technologies necessary for bitcoin's mainstream use. The best known is the Lightning Network, first proposed in a 2015 white paper by Joseph Poon and Tadge Dryja. The idea is payment channels that move transactions off the blockchain could boost bitcoin's capacity to millions of transactions per Continue reading >>
What Is Segwit? | Cryptocompare.com
We have already covered the Block size limit and the debate that has been revolving around this issue for years - Read more here . We have also covered one of the scaling solutions that has been put forward, Bitcoin Unlimited . Now its time to talk about SegWit, the scaling solution proposed by the Bitcoin Core development team SegWit is short for segregated witnesses and it is a proposal presented by the Bitcoin Core team. It comes in the form of a soft fork, a forward compatible upgrade that can work even if some users dont update their software (without resulting in a chain split). It was released on the 0.13.1 version of Bitcoin Core client. In transactions there are three key elements. The sender, receiver and the signatures (commonly referred to as witnesses) and these make up a big part of the transaction size. Contrary to popular belief, however, SegWit does not seperate this witness data into a witness block. Instead, Segwit updates the 1MB block size limit into a 4 million unit block weight limit, counting serialised witness data as one unit and core block data as four units. It essentially introduces a new transaction format. What this means is that the block size is actually increased. SegWit counts each byte in a witness as 0.25 bytes towards the maximum block size limit (1MB), meaning the maximum size of a block becomes just under 4MB. This doesnt mean that the data gets smaller, it simply means that it is counted in a way that allows for the 1MB limit to be increased. This change, however, only affects witness data and each non-witness byte is still counted as 1 byte towards the maximum block size limit (1MB) or as 4 units towards a maximum block weight of 4M units. As transactions that use segwit features begin to be used, this change will allow more da Continue reading >>
Segwit Is Coming To Coinbase And Bitfinexs Bitcoin Exchanges
SegWit is Coming to Coinbase and Bitfinexs Bitcoin Exchanges Today, two of the worlds largest cryptocurrency investment platforms, Coinbase and Bitfinex , both announced that they were adopting support for Segregated Witness (SegWit) protocols for bitcoin (BTC) traded on their exchanges. In its announcement , Bitfinex stated, The SegWit implementation means Bitfinex users can benefit from lower BTC withdrawal fees (approximately 15 percent) and improved processing times on transactions across the Bitcoin network. The exchange did make clear that the support for bitcoin deposits and withdrawals using pay-to-script-hash (P2SH) SegWit addresses were the only ones thus far slated for bitcoin and not applicable to bitcoin cash (BCH). Coinbase, on the other hand, tweeted that it had finished testing for SegWit for Bitcoin. It will phase in the launch, with the goal of targeting a 100% launch to all customers by mid next week. Coinbase affirmed its plan for a 2018 SegWit implementation on December 15, 2017 and seemingly delivered on the SegWit statements it made on February 13, 2018. Reasons for the support of using SegWit addresses are clear. Prior to the activation of the Segregated Witness soft fork in August 2017, there were concerns about the scalability and malleability of Bitcoin due to the size limit of the blocks and a potential manipulation of the transaction ID. These concerns had been a source of debate for years until the soft fork allowed for protocol upgrades to the software. While many hard and soft wallets already adopted support for SegWit protocols, the move by both companies is huge given the volume of bitcoin traded on each platform. At the time of this writing, both Bitfinex and Coinbases exchange, GDAX, accounted for nearly one tenth of global bitcoin t Continue reading >>
Coin Dance | Bitcoin Block Details
Emergent Consensus: / 1000 Core / Non-EC: 1000 / 1000 SegWit2x: 68 / 1000 Other: 0 / 1000 " O2ZG>xVu (Mined by BW.COM)/BW Pool/NYA/ !mmE&08M1{P1 e sU 3/slush/ yJ2Zc/BTC.COM/mm-e ;RV^>} p+.[N g OI$ A],G=A\ /BTC.TOP/mmV_>\njzGxT kb /ViaBTC/Mined by huicheng01/,mm_ 7G]jJyDW >~b'J mm 7f0 k e GB H3/slush/ AXh)AW|/BTC.TOP/[email protected]+cbp- <~\ Y[? PU mmP>f}s[U-4W e ;1 //slush/ A-A&/BTC.TOP/mm!j>a K1I~FB/ ~:g 0m; .R-_b[u7i|" u9B|h /BTCC/ /ViaBTC/Mined by 5277/,mm'{pVAs <pno#k UL\ mm*OS/}NDgja_- e =: _/slush/ /ViaBTC/Mined by wanggang3/,mmS"0q#W=y9Q5\5 {FWg A8pA7 A/BTC.TOP/mm bFd%,?(0Q Y[? i:d ,mmSW[email protected]|8EDPi Gpu Mined by dawei8888 ,mm / e tp3_^1S,N G>K!w Mined by bjx05 Z xK#r{x@O1?_czY b `a t /BTCC/ ] 2Zb/BTC.COM/mm8I|iti=%y#V XE^ h(XUU ,mm /.$Nz9~Xt Mined by dengshikai 0 2Zg/BTC.COM/mmpT[TLX ,_%6 ,5$4 AwA/BTC.TOP/mmL|)'II'8C( 8x/OT q% /mined by gbminers/,mmrjix+ [email protected]SLv' J) e XR*iO f2Ze/BTC.COM/mm:^J_!QOrrW.aJ e p2ZBO TI (Mined by BW.COM)/BW Pool/NYA/ /ViaBTC/Mined by 15242222264/,mm4 >"1e) ,YRsmU Mined by AntPoolh[ Z2mm-pQxRKvF4 Kmr # } Z /ViaBTC/Mined by farnham/,mm]WP&1):Wi:Q _jJmZ 2Zc/BTC.COM/mm?}A~2>=)w?/M!}M9 e 2Zc/BTC.COM/mmDLUh |+X-?7a " kWU )6hgbW~rS31,1mm<5iR} xkZC /mined by gbminers/,mm26" =^kiSXH+& d GA` /ViaBTC/Mined by blk101/,mmSI /X zA VUL?kI A}FA}Y/BTC.TOP/mm<)jZ>4\ 3WU mms_G
Blockstream - The Status Of Segwit At Blockstream
by Blockstream SegWit, the Segregated Witness soft fork for Bitcoin, reached 97% signalling in early August, then went live in block 481,824 on August 24th at 01:57 UTC. This is the biggest protocol update ever for Bitcoin, in process since early December 2015 . It was created as a collaboration among many participants in the Bitcoin community. SegWit is a soft fork that is completely backward compatible, with network participants able to adopt it at their own speed. Its usage has increased since activation. As of this writing, SegWit transactions have reached 10% , while companies are activating SegWit and funds are being transferred to SegWit addresses. We expect to see many SegWit-enabled extensions and improvements in the coming months, including signature aggregation and more cross-chain atomic swaps. Blockstreams own projects are also moving into the SegWit future: GreenAddress, Blockstreams non-custodial Bitcoin wallet, is directly supporting SegWit with a SegWit-enabled update to its wallet. GreenAddress had long offered this configuration in its testnet environment, and deployed it on mainnet in early September. Users can now choose to upgrade their wallets. If they do, theyll see that fees have already halved for SegWit transactions due to the segregation of signatures. Lightning Network, a payment channel that is supported by academia, individual contributors, and multiple startups including Blockstream, benefits from SegWit. Lightning was possible without SegWit, but the transaction malleability bug meant that chained transactions could be rendered invalid. Now, developing layer-two protocols like Lightning is easier, more flexible, and more efficient. This allows real-world usage of Lightning to advance, with a movement Toward a Unified Lightning Network b Continue reading >>
Bitcoin Fees Are Falling Amidst Greater Segwit Adoption
Bitcoin Fees Are Falling Amidst Greater Segwit Adoption Transaction fees, a bugbear for many in the bitcoin community, are on their way down. Spiraling fees were a contentious issue that reached fever pitch in the twilight of 2017. But with the dawn of a new year, bitcoin has been blessed with reduced fees, set against a backdrop of increased Segwit adoption. Also read: Peter Thiel, Bitcoin Astronaut, Moves Markets with Crypto Moonshot Fees Have Halved from Their December Peak After spending the final quarter of 2017 ramping up, transaction fees on the bitcoin network have finally begun to decline. Bitcoinfees.info indicates an average fee of $15.79 to have a transaction mined within the next six blocks, rising slightly to $16.54 for the next three blocks and $17.29 for the next block. The median withdrawal fee from exchanges such as Bitfinex this week has been closer to $14 however. While $14-$16 is still more than many people would like to spend, its an improvement at least over the $30 bitcoin fees that were reached during December. Estimatefee.com quotes an average of 358 satoshis/byte to move a transaction within the next six blocks. The number of transactions in the mempool waiting to be confirmed is now below 90,000, from a peak of over 115,000 on December 30. The average cost per transaction in $ has dropped considerably. In the last 24 hours, Localbitcoins.com and BTC.com have added Segwit support to their wallets. In a blogpost, mining pool and bitcoin wallet provider BTC.com wrote: As a BTC.com wallet user, you will experience a drop in the transaction fees and faster transaction times when you send bitcoin to another address. It has now added this functionality to both its mobile and desktop wallets. Peer-to-peer exchange and online wallet Localbitcoins.com Continue reading >>
Generating Segwit Change Addresses In Bitcoin 0.15
Generating Segwit Change Addresses in Bitcoin 0.15 Segwit was activated on the Bitcoin network in August 2017. Unfortunately, thereare still not many segwit transactions on mainnet, and most blocks are stillabout 1 MB in size. One of the obstacles here is that the current version ofBitcoin Core, 0.15.1, does not include native segwit support. Bitcoin Core canactually generate segwit addresses relatively easily, with a single RPC call toaddwitnessaddress. But at least at the moment, theres no way to easy receivechange output at a segwit change when using sendtoaddress. Actually Bitcoin Core 0.15 does support this, you just have to use the rawtransaction API. This might sound scary, but its actually not that hard. Inthis post Ill show how to create and use segwit change addresses using the rawtransaction API available in Bitcoin Core 0.15. Bitcoin Core comes with a regression test mode called regtest. In regtest modeyou start with a completely empty blockchain, and there is a special RPC methodthat can be used to generate new blocks (as if you were mining, but without thewait!). This mode is extremely useful for testing Bitcoin features, because youdont need to wait for real blocks to be mined on mainnet or testnet. The first step here will be to run a bitcoind instance in regtest mode andgenerate some blocks: # Launch an instance of bitcoind in regtest mode.$ bitcoind -daemon -regtest# Generate some new blocks. You must generate at least 432 to enable segwit.$ bitcoin-cli -regtest generate 432#
Bitcoin Core :: Segregated Witness Adoption
The following is a list of companies and software projects that are ready or preparing for segregated witness . To add your company or service, please submit a pull-request . Segwit Ready: 94, work-in-progress: 26, planned: 23 1 BitGo provides wallet services to exchanges such as Bitstamp and Kraken. 2 GreenAddress provides wallet services to TheRockTrading exchange, BitBoat and CoinBR. To add your company or service, please submit a pull-request . Continue reading >>
The Number Of Bitcoin Transactions Using Segwit Doubled In 2 Days, Here's Why That Matters
The Number Of Bitcoin Transactions Using SegWit Doubled In 2 Days, Here's Why That Matters I've been a full-time Bitcoin writer and researcher since early 2014. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Although Segregated Witness (SegWit), which is a change in the way Bitcoin transactions are handled, was originally activated on the network back in August, user adoption of the new feature has been relatively low. According to segwit.party , the percentage of transactions on the network that use SegWit inputs stalled between 10% and 15% over the past few months. Over the past couple of weeks, a few key entities in the Bitcoin ecosystem have rolled out enhanced support for SegWit, which has led to greater capacity for transactions in each new block. More specifically, the percentage of transactions on the network that use SegWit inputs recently grew from 15% to 30% over the course of less than two days. As more exchanges, wallet providers, and other entities involved with the creation of Bitcoin transactions adopt SegWit, the total capacity of the network will continue to rise. Although the congestion on the network has calmed over the past month or two , the historically-high fees and unreliable confirmation times were a key point of contention in the community over the past couple of years. SegWit is an improved method of handling Bitcoin transactions that has a number of effects on the network as a whole. The two ways that SegWit impacts Bitcoin that are most relevant today are an increased block size limit and a fix for the transaction malleability bug. The upside of an increased block size limit is obviously the increased capacity made available on the network as a result (more transactions can be processed per second). On the other hand, larger bloc Continue reading >>
Bitcoin Segwit Update The Coinbase Blog
We wanted to give our customers an update on Bitcoin Segregated Witness (SegWit) transactions: we are planning to implement SegWit in 2018. We are prioritizing security and performance over newfeatures In terms of our engineering priorities, securely storing customer funds remains our top priority. Our next priority is to ensure that our platform remains performant during periods of peak volume. Following security and performance, we are focused on adding new features for our customers. Many of our customers have been asking for SegWit, and were working out a way to implement this upgrade safely. We store billions of dollars worth of bitcoin on behalf of customers and any change to our infrastructure is done with significant planning and consideration for the security and stability of our platform. For those unfamiliar with SegWit, this upgrade helps reduce the size of transactions, which improves the overall transaction capacity of the Bitcoin network. This upgrade should also help reduce the fees customers pay on bitcoin transactions. You can read more about SegWit here . We will share additional updates with our customers as we get closer to launching this feature. Note: the SegWit upgrade is different than Bitcoin SegWit2x . Continue reading >>
Segwit - Wikipedia
Segregated Witness, or SegWit, is the name used for an implemented soft fork change in the transaction format of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin which has also been implemented on currencies such as Litecoin , DigiByte and Vertcoin . The formal title "Segregated Witness (Consensus layer)" had Bitcoin Improvement Proposals number BIP141. [1] It is intended to solve a blockchain size limitation problem that reduces Bitcoin transaction speed. It does this by splitting the transaction into two segments, removing the unlocking signature ("witness" data) from the original portion and appending it as a separate structure at the end. [2] The original section would continue to hold the sender and receiver data, and the new "witness" structure would contain scripts and signatures. The original data segment would be counted normally, but the "witness" segment would, in effect, be counted as a quarter of its real size. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a form of money using cryptography to keep transactions secure. [3] Each record of a unit of Bitcoins is called a "block", and all blocks are tied together sequentially by using a cryptographic hash on the previous block and storing in the next. This forms a chain of blocks, or a blockchain. [4] Each block of bitcoins contains information about who sends and receives a given unit of bitcoin (a transaction), as well as the signature that approves each transaction. Originally, there was no limit to the size of these blocks. But this meant that malicious people could make up fake "block" data that was very long as a form of Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Their fake blocks would be detected, but doing so would take a very long time, slowing down the whole system. [5] The solution Satoshi designed was to put a limit on block size, which was 1 MB Continue reading >>
Just Segwit? Bitcoin Core Is Already Working On A New Scaling Upgrade
Just SegWit? Bitcoin Core Is Already Working on a New Scaling Upgrade Oct 12, 2017 at 08:00 UTC|UpdatedOct 12, 2017 at 20:12 UTC Bitcoin's core developer team isn't yet done scaling the cryptocurrency's protocol. Despite the fact that a years-in-the-making change called Segregated Witness ( SegWit ) activated on the network just over six weeks ago (with businesses and users now slowly updating and average block sizes inching upward ), the upgrade has already started a chain reaction of work on other optimizations geared toward accommodating more users. So, while businesses and miners are pushing for more aggressive scaling via the controversial Segwit2x proposal , the open-source team behind bitcoin's most widely used software is focused on other efforts entirely. Called "Schnorr signatures," the technology offers another signature scheme option alongside Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). One benefit is that it supports "signature aggregation" on the bitcoin blockchain. While that may sound complex, the change aims to consolidate activity that already takes place on the network with each transaction. Under the ECDSA scheme, each piece of a bitcoin transaction is signed individually, while with Schnorr signatures, all of this data can be signed once. And doing so could improve bitcoin in a few key ways, according to developers working on the effort. Blockstream engineer Jonas Nick told CoinDesk that this method of mashing signature data together should be considered "low-hanging fruit for helping bitcoin scale." First, by decreasing the number of signatures, it increases the amount of transaction data that can fit into each block. Second, by merging signatures, the technology could enhance privacy by making it harder to determine where transactions are Continue reading >>
What The Fork Is Segwit? Everything You Need To Know About Bitcoin Scaling
What the fork is SegWit? Everything you need to know about Bitcoin scaling If youve been wondering about why Bitcoin transactions have been slowing down lately, thats because it is reaching its limit in terms of block size. In August this year, the Bitcoin Core developers finally implemented SegWit on the Bitcoin Blockchain , thus making the platform faster and more scalable. To put simply, the SegWit modification provides a way to get more transactions committed faster by changing which data is stored within each block and which is segregated. But to really understand what it means, lets take a step back and understand the concept of the blockchain and what blocks are. Cryptocurrencies and blockchains are essentially built out of blocks, which are a unit of information. With the Bitcoin blockchain, each block has a limit of 1 MB. The blockchain is composed out of a series or chain of blocks, which make up the public ledger, a copy of which resides on all the Blockchain nodes. Its an endless number of blocks being tied or chained to one another through a cryptographic hash. A block consists of two parts: a header and a body. Within the block, there are different layers of data. The header stores a cryptographic hash of the previous block, along with a time signature and other data. The body stores the transactions, including sender data and receiver public keys, which help ensure that these are legitimate transactions. The problem is that as transactions increase and become data-heavy, it clogs the blocks, which bogs down the network when demand is high. This becomes an increasing issue as more people start using Bitcoin and adopt the technology. In order for the Bitcoin to succeed and be useful, a solution to process the blocks faster is necessary. One of the proposed Continue reading >>
Segwit2x Backers Cancel Plans For Bitcoin Hard Fork
SegWit2x backers cancel plans for bitcoin hard fork Founder Gym aims to help underrepresented startup founders build techstartups Advocates for a bitcoin hard fork have now decided to cancel plans for the so-called SegWit2x fork . The bitcoin blockchain was supposed to split into two blockchains in roughly 8 days . But it looks like SegWit2x backers couldnt convince enough people in the bitcoin community to make the SegWit2x blockchain the new mainstream bitcoin blockchain. The SegWit2x fork should have increased the block size to 2 megabytes. This change could have helped when it comes to bitcoin scalability. But it has always been a controversial change and many bitcoin companies have not actively supported the move. So many feared that this fork could have split the community into two branches. Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together, the note says. Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoins growth. In other words, in order to keep the community together, SegWit2x backers have decided to call off the fork. The announcement has been signed by BitGos Mike Belshe, Xapos Wences Casares, Bitmains Jihan Wu, Bloqs Jeff Garzik, Blockchains Peter Smith and Shapeshifts Erik Voorhees. They all met in person earlier this year in New York to agree on this two-part plan. The first part was a bitcoin update called Segregated Witness . This soft fork already happened back in August. With SegWit, data is stored differently in each block it leads to some nice bitcoin features. First, the SegWit updates improves the tran Continue reading >>
How Segwit Made For A More User-friendly Bitcoin
How SegWit Made for a More User-Friendly Bitcoin By Joe Liebkind | Updated November 16, 2017 9:15 AM EST Who is Garrett Camp, Uber Founder and Crypto Inventor? On August 8, the Bitcoin network reached the level of consensus needed to adopt Segregated Witness (SegWit). The bitcoin improvement proposal (BIP) that contained the SegWit software component had been released in June, at which point minersspecial computers that confirm, verify and record transactions on the bitcoin networkgradually started signaling support for it. Samson Mow , chief security officer at Blockstream, a Canadian company building Lightning Network solutions said on the day of lock-in: Today is a great day. SegWit has locked-in and paved the way for years of permissionless innovation. Lightning Network will be a real game changer. The function of SegWit that so interests its supporters, is that it removes transaction signatures from bitcoin blocksthe batches of transactions that are approved every ten minutes. This increases room for transactions by about 60%, reducing the time users wait for transactions to be approved. It is supposed to make using bitcoin cheaper, faster and more secure. Before final activation, miners and nodes in the network installed the new version of the bitcoin core software that implements the improvements. Ordinary users of bitcoin dont need to take any steps, as the changes will be completed through the software upgrades made by the miners. For the ordinary user, their wallet applications will work fine, though their wallet service may upgrade for more compatibility. George Basiladze, founder and CEO of Cryptopay , a bitcoin wallet, payment processor and bitcoin debit card provider, - and about to launch its ICO soon - stated prior to the launchthat users should expect Continue reading >>
