With the potential upcoming fork prompted by supporters of SegWit2x, Bitcoin users are somewhat concerned about what the future holds. Although it seems unlikely this solution will cause any major network issues come November, one never knows how things will evolve. There is now a website titled NoB2x which lists all companies and service providers that do not support SegWit2x. The list is quite long, indicating that the chances of survival for this particular scaling proposal are not all that great.
NoB2x List is Growing at an Accelerated Pace
It is neither the first nor the last time we will see discussion of SegWit2x. The upgrade has significant “intent” support from most mining pools around the world, but that does not mean it will successfully activate on the network without a hitch. In fact, it is equally possible we will never see it activate in the form originally outlined in the New York Agreement. With very little economic support for SegWit2x and a growing list of individuals who openly oppose the concept, the coming weeks will be pretty crucial for the entire Bitcoin community.
The Bitcoin network will see its SegWit upgrade regardless. That upgrade is scheduled to take place in about a week from now. However, supporters of SegWit2x recently announced the timing of their Bitcoin hard fork in November and the block on which it would occur. November will be a contentious time for Bitcoin as a whole, as no one knows for sure how things will play out. If it were up to SegWit2x supporters, their chain would become Bitcoin’s dominant blockchain.
There is a lot of opposition to the SegWit2x scaling solution documented on the NoB2x website. That is not entirely surprising by any means, as all companies listed on the page desire Segregated Witness but not necessarily a subsequent 2MB block size increase. Whether or not this situation changes over the next few weeks remains to be seen. After all, it is possible some miners from both “solutions” would flock to Bitcoin Cash due to it being the most profitable form of Bitcoin to mine right now.
On the NoB2x website are some prominent names in the Bitcoin world. Acinq, for example, is a Lightning Network scalability provider. Bisq is a well-known decentralized exchange. The list also includes other exchanges, brokers, and OTC trading providers. In fact, it even includes Bitfinex, Bitstamp, CEX, Gemini, Kraken, and virtually every other major exchange one can think of. There are also a fair few Bitcoin wallet providers on this list as well, which is not entirely surprising to see at this stage. SegWit2x is very contentious at best and often referred to as “BitMainCoin” due to the world’s largest mining pool and hardware manufacturer clearly favoring it over both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
There are still some entities that have yet to clarify their official positions, however. It is obvious some companies would prefer to wait and see how things unfold before making any drastic decisions. Both Huobi and OKCoin, for instance, are two very large cryptocurrency exchanges. They have not indicated support for SegWit2x at this point, yet they have not openly opposed it either. Bittylicious, one of the UK’s largest Bitcoin brokers, is also not sure how to handle things right now, although it seems likely it will follow the economic majority in the end.
SegWit2x is a problematic scaling solution that will leave the community divided. We already have two “versions” of Bitcoin right now. Adding a third version to the mix will only make things more confusing and cause a lot of negative pressure on the overall BTC ecosystem. Although everyone is free to follow their favorite solution, SegWit2x seemingly has no chance of succeeding in any way other than issuing free tokens to Bitcoin holders and letting them destroy the price as a result.
