Proponents of SegWit2x: Bitcoin’s hard fork lacks agreement

Proponents of bitcoin’s announced hard fork, SegWit2x, say there hasn’t been enough agreement on it in the bitcoin community. The purpose of the split is to increase the block size.

In a statement, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe and ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees wrote: “Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade of bitcoin. While we strongly believe in the need for a larger block size, we believe there is something more important: keeping the community together.Unfortunately, it’s clear that we haven’t reached enough agreement for a clean upgrade at this point.Continuing on the same path could divide the community and put a brake on bitcoin’s growth.It never was the intent of SegWit2x.”

They state that increasing the block size, which would go to 2MB under the canceled proposal, may still be seen as an option in the future. The authors expect that with the increase in transaction costs on the blockchain it will become clear that capacity increases need to be made. Until then, they abandon their plans. Earlier, a hard fork of bitcoin took place, whereby Bitcoin Cash, which has a larger block size, was created. Bitcoin Cash followed the SegWit soft fork, which was agreed in July.

Bitcoin’s price rose sharply after the announcement of the SegWit2x news, but then declined sharply again, before stabilizing. During the peak, the price of the cryptocurrency reached its highest level to date: a whopping $7,900.

Bitcoin price trend, according to CoinDesk