Bitcoin transactions have increased by fifty (50.5%) percent on the SegWit handle. Are we ready for the upgrade?
Bitcoin transactions on the handle that uses the Segregated Witness (SegWit) protocol, allow splitting of transactional data and the unlocking signature is removed so that it can be attached at the end of the data stream.
Using SegWit for transfers is both faster and economical than the standard protocol that the Bitcoin blockchain uses. A comparison between the soft-fork offspring and the normal layer gives us some quite fascinating numbers. Using the regular protocol, the Bitcoin blockchain will allow one (1) megabyte of transactional data to be sent per block. This gives us two thousand five hundred (2,500) transactions being worked upon every ten (10) minutes on the network.
The opt-in feature that originated due to a soft-fork and allows traders to bypass many restrictions, works faster and theoretically, it can transfer transactional data at a rate of four (4) to sixteen (16) transactions per second. The variations depend on how data-intensive each transaction is.
SegWit was misunderstood
That being the case, with over fifty (50%) percent transactions made using the SegWit, the Bitcoin blockchain has doubled in transactional bandwidth. This also means that the transactions being made are mostly fewer data-intensive because SegWit, technically supports that format.
It came out, as a result of a soft-fork on the Bitcoin Blockchain in August 2017. While it was gladly accepted into the crypto space by wallets that had it integrated such as Trezor or Ledger. It rose suspicion among the crypto exchanges. The reason simply being it a new protocol that needed further testing. The crypto exchanges were not going to take that risk at that time.
This is the first time SegWit has crossed over fifty (50). Fourteen (14) month after its launch, the feature’s adoption rose to forty-eight (48.5%) percent and remained between forty (40%) to forty-eight (48%) all this time up till now.
