There has been a new development in bitcoins scaling debate and its triggering a reddit battle rap. Whatever "segregated witness" is it seems to be holding ground in this hostile world. Those who are not familiar with programming and more with Wu Tang will like what they are getting here, more transactions. Understanding how it works is another thing.
The bitcoin improvement proposal increases the amount of transactions that bitcoin can process with out increasing the block size, something once considered impossible without a hard fork. It does this by folding transaction data into encrypted signatures. The result is increased transaction capacity by up to four times. Thats 28 transactions per second or around 2.4m per day.
There are auxiliary benefits to the proposal as well. It fixes long standing concerns about malleability and allows the existing block chain to be trimmed without compromising security. "SegWit" is also compatible with other scaling projects such as the lightning network and sidechains. It gives these systems more time to be fully dispersed and reduces the risk of a transaction bottleneck before they are fully utilised. It seems holding out on change, in this case, has paid off with more innovation.
Bitcoiners are having a decentralised block party on this and it shows in the price. It has been years in the making. Gregory Maxwell of the bitcoin "core" first floated the concept for testing at the Hong Kong scaling conference. Following that Pieter Wuille, another prominent bitcoin coder made a presentation streaming live on the 14th of December. The price of bitcoin rose by $15 that day to $460 USD. The proposal now has at least 31 signatures from the bitcoin core group, which is by far the most significant group of bitcoin coders, bitcoin gurus so to speak so far. There are now 50 signatures on a road map to have this implemented by April 2016 along with other measures.
Its not unanimous, people have come back and said that the SegWit code is ugly. They debate the idea of adding many lines of code to solve a solution that can be solved with just one line in the consensus code. Even though SegWit does not change the consensus code it may add complexity to the overall system and it is unclear what the repercussions of the change could be. The code in itself could be considered quite elegant or atrocious, judge for yourself. In the end it depends on your opinion of a hard fork. Increasing block size means that all bitcoin software needs to be updated to avoid major disruption to the system. SegWit doesn't require this simultaneous upgrading of nodes.
It's exciting to see such practical results and problem solving developing far a decentralised community. Segregated witness at the very least proves the ability of bitcoin and core developers to innovate and make wise decisions under pressure. An early change as proposed by Mike Yearn certainly seems foolish now. Group think concerns seem to have given way to the hive-mind. This is positive progress without a true leader. We will be watching this space into 2016 and eager to hear more. With some relief this could be the end of the argument and start of a new phase for bitcoin addoption.
"Can I get Segwitness to testify that we take care of business?"
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