Bitcoin keeps moving forward on its road to scalability with an ever-increasing implementation of SegWit, a technology that today reached a record high and continues to grow.
Segregated Witness or Segwit is a process that removes the signature data from a transaction, allowing to store more movements in the same block.
The implementation of this technology aims to reduce waiting times in confirmations as well as a reduction in fees.
Segwit is a “second layer” implementation which together with Ligthing Network allow Bitcoin to achieve record transaction speeds and a significant reduction in fees.
However, implementation of these technologies hasn’t been instantaneous. Its staggered adoption and the various controversies have prevented a full-scale adoption.
Precisely the debate about segwit implementation concluded with the creation of a fork of the original Bitcoin known as Bitcoin Cash.
Supporters of this fork propose an infinite increase in the size of the blocks as a solution. However, detractors say that it would contribute to the centralization of the benefits associated with mining.
The reason behind this problem is that the larger the block volume, the greater the computational capacity needed to mine. For this reason, the most important advocates of this fork are Roger Ver (owner of bitcoin.com) and Jihan Wu (owner of bitmain and antpool).
Segwit: A Promising Implementation On Its Way To Global Adoption
Despite such controversy, Segwit’s adoption growth has been steady and successful. At the beginning of the year, it represented only 10% of the total transactions in BTC and now it comprises 40% of the total.
The information on this adoption record can be viewed at Transactionfee.info, a website dedicated to tracking the behavior of bitcoin payment transactions.
Also, one of the reasons that could have helped Segwit reach a record adoption rate was the implementation of the protocol in Xapo’s wallets.
Ted Rogers, President of Xapo revealed the information on a quite optimistic tweet:
Happy to say that @Xapo has implemented #Segwit. Onward!
— Ted Rogers (@tedmrogers) May 24, 2018
Especially relevant is the fact that Xapo owns one of the largest Bitcoin wallet services in the world, storing almost 7% of the total Bitcoins available. A considerable number in the world of cryptocurrencies
Equally important was the adoption by Coinbase. The announcement was officially made in a post on their Gdax blog on February 23rd:
We are excited to announce that GDAX now supports Segregated Witness (SegWit) transactions on the Bitcoin network. Over the coming days, full support for SegWit transactions will be rolling out to 100% of our customers. SegWit is a critical step forward in the development of Bitcoin.”
The growing implementation of Segwit allows for positive prospects for a global adoption of Bitcoin in the future.
