What is SegWit and Why We Need It

What is SegWit?

Segregated Witness, more commonly known as SegWit, is the process in which the block size limit is increased due to the removal of signature data in the block. This is great because if we implement SegWit in our everyday Bitcoin lives then the mempool will free up making transactions basically fee free again!

How do I use SegWit?

It is pretty easy to implement SegWit into your life. First, you need a SegWit wallet. 

Some SegWit wallets are:

 Ledger Nano S

Trezor

Armory

Electrum

BitWallet

GreenAddress

GreenBits

Samourai

You may already have a SegWit wallet though. Just look at your wallet address and if it has a "3" at the beginning you got a SegWit address, but if it has a "1" at the beginning you don't have a SegWit wallet.

You also will need a Bitcoin exchange that uses SegWit.

Some exchanges that have deployed SegWit are:

BitStamp

HitBTC

 QuadrigaCX 

ShapeShift

and no, Coinbase does not support SegWit.

What is a SegWit transaction?

SegWit transactions are only when the sender of the Bitcoin has a SegWit address.

A SegWit address to a SegWit address is a SegWit transaction.

A SegWit address to a non-SegWit address is a SegWit transaction.

A non-SegWit address to a SegWit address is not a SegWit transaction.

Current State of SegWit

SegWit is not very widespread yet. SegWit transactions are about 10% of all transactions currently. We can change this though. Please, all of you, start using SegWit once and for all! Our unconfirmed transactions are at about 274,000. If we all use SegWit, the mempool will be empty once again and transaction fees will be low again.

Thank you for reading my article and I hope you will use SegWit.