SegWit’s Likely Lock-In: What Today’s Milestone Means for Bitcoin
Unless there are probable interruptions, the proposal to set up the separate SegWit indicator should hang on the network bitcoin today.
If enough miners keep indicating the support, SegWit should reach the necessary threshold later in the afternoon (around the block 479 708). And although it is possible in theory, the miners could change their minds , it is not very probable that they are - in brief, the miners have an enormous financial incentive to enforce the change.
At this moment, Bitcoin will be a little bit closer to change the way certain nodes on the data of the store of 50 billion dollar network, opening the way to more fascinating and forward-looking technologies, such as the top-level Lightning network and other advances in the development advances.
But even with the locked change, bitcoin will not update overnight for two reasons:
1-Because of the grace period of two weeks of SegWit, the modification will not be activated until the block 481 824, which should be planned on August 21st.
2-Although the locking assures that SegWit will become a part of the network, the services bitcoin again have to improve their software to support the new style of transaction.
Enter a grace period
The original idea behind the grace period of SegWit is simple: she allows the miners to upgrade their software so that they can change in accord. Thus, while it can look like another delay, it is in fact an essential stage.
After this period of two weeks, the miners who upgraded their software to support SegWit will create blocks which impose the new rules. It means that the miners who did not improve will risk to lose their rewards (approximately 42 000 $), because their blocks would be rejected by other miners.
However, at the time of the activation, it is not still clear how long it will need so that the change of code reaches the ecosystem and is actually adopted by the users, the suppliers of wallets, the exchanges and the other essential infrastructures of network.
A number of services are already ready to support SegWit, including one of the most used wallets, bitcoin startup blockchain, as well as the main exchanges of bitcoins Kraken and LocalBitcoins.
However, certain remarkable voices support any greater handling of SegWit could set more time considering the involved costs. Altogether, it remains a question of contesting.
The importance of the locking
Besides, while it is one of the numerous deadlines bound connected to SegWit to pass recently, it should not damage the meaning of this particular stage: the locking is the stage which guaranteed in fact that SegWit will be added to the network.
As such, the idea as SegWit will have reached this level of support could be considered as a breath of fresh air for many. In spite of the persistent criticisms, it is just to say that SegWit benefits from a wide support (although the precise details of the proposals for its adoption varied).
From this perspective, today can be considered as a turning point in the development of the network.
Maybe more particularly, it guarantees that at least some sort of scaling-related tech will be added to the network, without creating a completely new blockchain to arrive there.
And its promulgation could contribute to encourage other advances, showcasing bitcoin’s willingness to change, however slowly.
Proposed in 2015 and introduced for the users at the end of last year, SegWit set on a little more than one and a half year to cross some concept in the production.
