Segregated Witness (SegWit) Activation
7 years ago, Bitcoin underwent a significant upgrade known as Segregated Witness (SegWit). This upgrade was implemented to address the issue of transaction malleability and to increase the network’s transaction capacity. SegWit works by separating signature data from Bitcoin transactions, effectively increasing the amount of transaction data that each block can hold. This change allowed Bitcoin to process more transactions per second, thereby enhancing its scalability.
The Role of BIP148
The activation of SegWit was driven by a proposal known as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 148 (BIP148), a user-activated soft fork (UASF) that aimed to enforce the adoption of SegWit without relying on miner support. The proposal specified that nodes would begin rejecting blocks not signaling for SegWit from August 1, 2017, thereby pushing miners to comply with the new protocol. The move was crucial in ensuring the upgrade took effect, as it pressured miners to align with the community’s demands.
Preventing a Hostile Takeover
Before the activation of SegWit, Bitcoin was at risk of a split due to differing opinions on how to scale the network. A competing proposal, SegWit2x, aimed to increase block size through a hard fork, which was controversial due to its lower activation threshold and shorter testing period. The community’s support for BIP148 helped prevent a chain split, ensuring that Bitcoin remained a single unified network.
Impact on Bitcoin’s Future
SegWit’s implementation laid the groundwork for future innovations, such as the Lightning Network, which further increased Bitcoin’s transaction capacity by allowing off-chain transactions. This upgrade was pivotal in Bitcoin’s history, solidifying its status as a decentralized and resilient digital currency.
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