The SegWit2x Hard Fork Will Occur on Bitcoin Block 494,784

Not long ago, we discussed whether or not the SegWit2x hard fork would still happen. At the time, it appeared there was very little reason to suppose it would, considering the lack of support enjoyed by this project. However, the team behind SegWit2x is not giving up just yet, and they have announced the block number during which the hard fork is expected to take place. Even with this announcement, the fork may not have much support in the long run.

Fake Bitcoin Core Twitter Account

The SegWit2x hard fork message was distributed by the BCoreProject Twitter account, rather than the Bitcoin Core account itself. This shows someone is still planning to go ahead with the SegWit2x hard fork and increase the block size to 2 MB. Unfortunately, it seems the vast majority of the network has no intention of doing this right now, and it is unclear how much support this proposal still has.

A few weeks ago, the Bitcoin network came together to lock in the activation of Segregated Witness. Indeed, the network would receive this upgrade in one way or another. With so many mining pools coming together to activate this concept, nothing stands in the way of making Bitcoin scale over the coming months. However, the opinions on how SegWit should be activated in order for Bitcoin to scale remain somewhat divided.

Segregated Witness will result in a transaction throughput increase. However, there is a portion of the community that still feels Bitcoin requires a 2 MB block size increase on top of Segregated Witness. That group is comprised of supporters of SegWit2x, who have announced plans to introduce this block size hard fork in one way or another. For now, that fork is scheduled to take place in November. The bigger question is whether or not it will gain enough support to survive.

The decision on the team’s part to state that “Bitcoin Core will hard fork in November” on a non-official Twitter account was not necessarily a good approach. There will always be people who have no idea which Bitcoin Core Twitter account is the real one. It is not hard to see this particular account has nothing to do with Bitcoin Core whatsoever. Still, it is good to know things will finally go down around block 494,784. Assuming it actually occurs, this will spawn yet another blockchain.

Right now, it appears most pools still signal the intention to activate SegWit2x on the release date. Furthermore, it does not appear any of the pools pledging support earlier have backed out of the agreement. That said, this was merely “intent” and not a full-fledged pledge to signal SegWit2x activation either. Rest assured there will be plenty of political shenanigans come November, as interesting things tend to happen at such critical times in Bitcoin’s history. It does not appear the majority of Bitcoin Core supporters have any love lost for SegWit2x whatsoever.

Things have always been interesting for Bitcoin, and that will not be changing anytime soon. SegWit2x has the potential to disrupt the network once again, just like Bitcoin Cash did for a few days. However, another altcoin using the Bitcoin name is the last thing we need right now. SegWit2x is an intriguing idea that may be successful or fall flat on its face. It is impossible to tell what the future holds right now, but we will find out more in the months to come.