The addition of support for SegWit and Lightning transactions led to a significant reduction in fees. And this is just the beginning of working with protocols. What to expect next?
SegWit is an updated, backwards-compatible protocol originally proposed by the Bitcoin Core development team. SegWit is part of the New York Agreement signed in May: an alternative scaling project that was supported by 56 companies and miners.
LN is a decentralized network of payment channels that allows users to make micropayments between two parties outside the blockchain. As a result, transaction fees are reduced.
More and more companies are starting to work with the SegWit protocol. On February 21, the largest international exchanges Coinbase and Bitfinex announced the implementation of a soft fork. In addition, the following are already working with it: Shapeshift, Ledger and Samourai wallets, TREZOR, Edge Wallet, Kraken, and the CoinMall market.
Unfortunately, the activation process is not as fast as many users would like. After all, in order to integrate a protocol into a system, it is necessary to carefully check compatibility with the system. And this is not a matter of overnight.
For players on exchanges that have enabled SegWit, such as Bitfinex, the most noticeable short-term benefits will be a more efficient transaction process with reduced fees and improved transaction speed. According to a blog post by Bitfinex, the implementation of SegWit means that Bitfinex users "can benefit from lower BTC withdrawal fees (approximately 15%) and improved transaction processing times on the Bitcoin network."
As more users begin sending payments from SegWit addresses, this should lead to an overall increase in network throughput, reduced congestion, and further reductions in fees.
An announcement was also made that SegWit is integrated into the new version of Bitcoin Core.
“The main change is that SegWit is being added to the wallet, and this allows users to easily create SegWit addresses,” explained Bitcoin Core team member Andrew Chow in an interview with CoinDesk.
The prospects for SegWit activation are exciting, but whether this will actually happen remains to be seen.
According to newsbtc
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