In just three days, the price of Bitcoin has had a staggering increase of nearly $600, which demonstrated a strong upward momentum that was unexpected in a relatively short period of time. This increase sparked confidence from investors in the Bitcoin market. The reason that this price increase was completely unexpected was due to the SegWit2x hard fork, which is scheduled for November, and due to hit major markets such as Japan, the US and South Korea. This pre-planned adjustment has split opinions, with some businesses and exchanges losing confidence in Bitcoin. Some of the largest wallets and exchanges have reaffirmed their stance on the upcoming changes, and it is not always in the favour of SegWit2x.
What is the SegWit2x?
The SegWit2x was proposed to upgrade Bitcoin, in a couple of ways. It would enact the long-proposed code optimisation Segregated Witness, which alters how some of the data is stored on the network. The 2x would reflect the timeline for increasing the network’s block size to 2MB, which is doubled from 1MB.
Who is for this upgrade?
Like we mentioned before, this proposed change has very much divided businesses and exchanges. Coinbase and Bitfinex have reaffirmed their stance on the upcoming SegWit2x hard fork, and the Bitfinex development team have revealed that they plan to utilise the moniker, ‘B2X’ to list the SegWit2x fork of Bitcoin upon the completion of its hard fork in November.
A member of the team released this statement; “We have elected to designate the SegWit2x fork as B2X, for now. The incumbent implementation will continue to trade as BTC even if the B2X chain has more hashing power. We are doing this for practical and operational reasons. Political considerations are irrelevant here. While we cannot change or re-assign ticker symbol, we can change the label or description associated with that ticker symbol. For the time being, BTC will continue to be labelled as ‘Bitcoin’ and B2X will be labelled as ‘B2X’”.
For these two major exchanges, it is important to note that they are listing the new coin as B2X, even if it has more hashing power, because the investors and traders will likely remain on the legacy chain, or the original Bitcoin blockchain. This means that in November, the market, users and investors can then decide which Bitcoin blockchain will be referred to as ‘Bitcoin’ and ‘BTC’.
Who opposes it?
The market confidence and price surge for Bitcoin, could actually demonstrate a lack of support for SegWit2x. Trading of Bitcoin has been increasing greatly in major regions such as Japan and the US, which has seen the price surge. This price has been predicted to rise further, but only if the SegWit2x turns out to be a minority fork. Tuur Demeester spoke on this topic saying; “The chart needs to confirm, but if the Bitcoin 2x hard fork turns out to be a nothing burger, it could provide tailwinds for a rally and $5,000” Unfortunately, this claim could soon be backed up, as the market is not doing anything to demonstrate that these predictions are not correct.
References and Further Reading:
- CoinDesk; Explainer: What is SegWit2x and What Does It Mean for Bitcoin?
- The CoinTelegraph; Bitcoin Exchanges Coinbase, Bitfinex Issue Guidance Before SegWit2X Hard Fork
- The CoinTelegraph; Xapo On SegWit2x: We Might Not Treat BTC Chain As Real Bitcoin
