Bitcoin users still hold out hope Segregated Witness will be activated on the network.it seems highly unlikely that will happen at this point.An alleged chat log on the Internet confirms SegWit will get activated soon, though.However, a lot of people rightfully seem unconvinced by this information.It appears this information should not be taken seriously at this point, although you never know if there is any truth to it.SegWit Activation Information is Dubious At Best The chat log in question looks like it could be legitimate.It is a screenshot from a Telegram conversation in which is active.One user asked him if he is bullish in terms of something SegWit related.Shrem then allegedly confirms this question.That is all of the information we have to go on right now.It doesn’t say much on its own, although some people see it as a validation of SegWit activation.The obvious counterargument is how Charlie Shrem – of all people – would enforce this activation.It does not appear he is in any position to make this activation happen.

However, it is possible this has to do with the scaling solution hinted at a few days ago.This proposal would see Segregated Witness activate at an 80% threshold.Moreover, a 2MB hard fork will occur in September of 2017.This is a rather strange turn of events, though.Then again, it appears a lot of companies are in favor of this solution. are on the list will raise a lot of questions.Then again, Bitcoin needs a scaling solution sooner rather than later.Perhaps this is the best way to end this debate once and for all.The discussion has gone on for far too long already.Bitcoin Price Continues to Surge Regardless of whether the news is true, Bitcoin’s price is rocketing upward.To some people, this lends credibility to the claims of activating .It is evident something is going on behind the scenes.Then again, the screenshot should not be considered to be a solid piece of evidence whatsoever.It is an interesting concept, but no guarantee Segregated Witness will activate anytime soon.(SegWit) and the have often been associated with each other because SegWit would enable an improved version of the Lightning Network to exist on Bitcoin; however, the enhancements SegWit brings to the Lightning Network are not entirely clear to many Bitcoin users.

, Lightning Labs co-founder was asked about the relationship between SegWit and the Lightning Network.Although there have been , Osuntokun was able to explain how SegWit improves the Lightning Network and what would happen if the improvement was never added to Bitcoin.The Lightning Network has gone through a few iterations, and its origins can be traced back to the original concept of .ethereum beginnersPayment channels are a way to do cryptographically-secure Bitcoin payments without broadcast each transaction to the blockchain, and the Lightning Network effectively improves upon this idea by creating a generalized network of these sorts of payments on top of Bitcoin.“Previously, there were payment channels, but they had a limited lifetime — meaning basically that you open a channel and then five days later or some amount of days you basically have to close it,” said Osuntokun.ethereum simple contract

“That’s kind of limiting because you as a user or the software itself (ideally) needs to decide what duration [the channels] should be open.And that depends on a lot of parameters.”According to Osuntokun, the fact that users would need to reopen channels on a regular basis would offset some of the scalability benefits that are supposed to come with these sorts of layer-two solutions.“One thing SegWit allows us to do very cleanly is we can have channels that can be open forever,” explained Osuntokun.texas bitcoin conference 2014“You can have channels that are open for months, for years.”Osuntokun added that he’s had a testnet Lightning Network channel open on his laptop for around four months.According to Osuntokun, another benefit of SegWit when it comes to the Lightning Network is that it solves “in a clean way”.“The way these transactions work, it’s kind of like a tree structure, so you have one transaction dependent on another transaction,” explained Osuntokun.bitcoin litecoin peercoin dogecoin

“If that other transaction gets invalidated, then this one does as well.So, you could have a weird scenario where even though you have a — ideally you could always get your money back — if the transaction got maleated then basically you wouldn’t have a valid signature to unlock your money.”, this scenario is described as a “hostage situation” in regard to a user’s funds being at the mercy of a bad actor.Another benefit of SegWit for the Lightning Network has to do with the need to watch the blockchain for someone attempting to cheat.bitcoin getting segwitWhile the system is secure in theory, users must still watch the blockchain to broadcast a revocation transaction if their counterparty tries to cheat.bitcoin casino minecraftAccording to Osuntokun, this activity can be outsourced to another party if SegWit is activated on the network.“With SegWit, we can do this thing called outsourcing where we can basically give a server a very minimal amount of information, which doesn’t even reveal which channel you are, and that sort of can act on your behalf,” said Osuntokun.Finally, Osuntokun also commented on what would happen in a hypothetical scenario where SegWit is never activated on Bitcoin.

At first, he pointed to , which has already activated SegWit, as an option for further testing.“We can basically use Litecoin as kind of a testbed,” said Osuntokun.“We can basically test our software out on something that’s a little bit smaller scale to make sure it’s actually hardened and works well.”Having said that, Osuntokun added that the Lightning Network can still come to Bitcoin in a scenario where SegWit is not activated.“We can still do it, but it’ll be more limited in terms of its capability, and it’ll be a little bit hacky,” said Osuntokun.“So, ideally, we get a malleability fix, and the main one that’s [available] right now is SegWit.It has a bunch of testing; I’ve implemented it, and I think it’s pretty good.”UASF stands for User Activated Soft Fork.It’s a mechanism where the activation time of a soft fork occurs on a specified date enforced by full nodes, a concept sometimes referred to as the economic majority.A UASF requires a lot of industry support and coordination, which is good practice for eventual hard forks which requires even more industry coordination.

In the past, a UASF was successfully carried out to activate the P2SH soft fork (BIP16).MASF stands for Miner Activated Soft Fork.It’s a mechanism by which miners trigger activation of soft forks when a majority signals the readiness to upgrade.This allows for a faster activation time for the soft fork, leaving full nodes to upgrade at their leisure.This method is a tradeoff, because it puts trust in the hash power actually enforcing the new rules.If they do not, it can cause various invalid chains on the network.For example, this was the case with BIP66, when hashpower indicated they had upgraded when in fact more than 50% had not.The other tradeoff is that the method allows a small number of hash power to veto activation of the soft fork for everyone on the network.Overall, if everyone cooperates, this method is very convenient and has been used to successfully activate multiple soft forks in the past such as BIP65 CLTV and BIP112 CSV.BIP148 is a UASF that is designed to cause the existing SegWit MASF deployment to cause activation in all existing SegWit capable node software (which currently is 80% of the network nodes).

How does BIP148 Work?This will cause all SegWit ready nodes, which make up over 80% of the network, to activate and begin enforcement.Miners must also check blocks prior to their own and ensure that they also signal for SegWit, and only build on those blocks.Add your business here by creating a pull request (must include public announcement link) To be clear, BIP148 is a soft fork that requires miners to activate the existing SegWit deployment.This is not the standard for UASF because normally nodes would just begin enforcement on a given “flag day”.However, almost 80% of the network has already upgraded to SegWit capable node software, in anticipation of miner triggered activation.A new “SegWit UASF” deployment would require all nodes to upgrade again which will take considerable time.For this reason, the shortened route to SegWit activation is to require blocks to signal for SegWit activation.In general, the block signalling mechanism is only supposed to be a coordination method that makes accelerated activation possible.

In 2012, P2SH was activated by UASF with a simple flag day.BIP148 was created to avoid having to force most users to upgrade their software.A vast majority of the nodes currently deployed are aware of the BIP9 signalling for SegWit.BIP148 is designed to motivate miners to signal for SegWit so that it is activated in a way that even users who are not running BIP148 will get the benefits of the activation of SegWit.It is recommended that users do not update unless an economic majority commits to updating and users are aware of the risks and mitigations of a failed UASF deployment.Users aware of the risks and who want to commit should use clients that enforce BIP148.Users that run full nodes would upgrade to one that enforces BIP148, or run their node behind an upgraded border node.Users of light clients (like mobile wallets) should check with each vendor to see their support for BIP148.We plan on documenting any public responses from wallets regarding BIP148 support.Satoshi Portal Electrum Server for UASF: 158.69.102.114 port 50002 Prior to August 1st, 2017, miners should either: BIP148 requires support from the economic majority, particularly exchanges and wallets.

If this does not occur, node software supporting BIP148 should not be run after August 1st as it will cause a chain split leading to the abandonment of BIP148.There are strong economic incentives in the Bitcoin system for nodes to cooperate and remain in consensus to prevent chain splits.If the economic majority is signalling as of August 1st, miners have many incentives to follow along.Not following along would make it difficult to sell coins mined after August 1st as the blocks would not be accepted by the economic majority.Essentially, miners would be producing an altcoin not recognized by users and exchanges, making them less useful and in lower demand.Some miners could opt to ignore the BIP148 rule and attempt to split the chain, but this would require a majority of miners who would be out of consensus from the rest of the economic majority.If a majority of hash power follows BIP148, all nodes will follow the chain regardless of if they are running BIP148.Non-compliant blocks will be orphaned.

All SegWit nodes will eventually activate SegWit.If a minority of the hash power (under 51%) follows BIP148, nodes running BIP148 will be fine, but those not running BIP148 will be out of consensus with the rest of the economy.In this scenario, the more of the economy that runs BIP148, the better.Miners will find it difficult to sell their coins leading economically motivated miners to start enforcing BIP148.Because BIP9 is time based, BIP148 needs to account for the possibility for some of the hash power to exit (eg.to mine another fork) which would make block intervals longer.The August 1st date allows for the economic majority to successfully activate SegWit.Theoretically, if the hashpower drops by up to 85%, it might take up to 13 weeks to complete an activation period.In this scenario, SegWit will still activate for all BIP148 compliant nodes.The best way to show support is to champion it through social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc…) and petition businesses and wallets to support it.

Many users have already installed (or upgraded to) Bitcoin Core UASF BIP148 and this is best option for those who use own nodes to send and receive bitcoin.Users who cannot upgrade existing Bitcoin Core can change their node’s user agent string to include BIP148, but such nodes will have to be upgraded to UASF BIP148 in order to be able to function on the BIP148 chain after August 1.To signal #BIP148 on Linux on your node without a software change: echo "uacomment=UASF-SegWit-BIP148" >> ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf && bitcoin-cli stop && sleep 5 && bitcoind To signal #BIP148 on Windows, you can edit the shortcut for Bitcoin as follows: N.B.This will not enforce UASF on your node; it will only signal that you support it at this stage.If you intend to use BIP148 to send and receive bitcoin after BIP148 activation, make sure to install Bitcoin Core UASF BIP148 prior to August 1, 2017.Signed binaries can be downloaded here.To build from source, follow the instructions below.First, install all necessary dependencies which are mentioned in the official Bitcoin build instructions: You can also use the gitian build system, which is a bit more complex, but generates deterministic builds which can then be verified by the signatures of some core developers: The next step is to clone the UASF repository: /UASF/bitcoin.git bitcoin_bip148 cd bitcoin_bip148 git checkout 0.14-BIP148 and then continue with the default compiling steps which are mentioned in the official build instructions: Finished - you can run now your UASF BIP148 node.

: Feel free to join, we are always happy about people which are interested and would like to discuss with us!BIP148 will occur as long as any users support it.Many users have committed to running BIP148 regardless of consequences, therefore it cannot be cancelled.Users that decide to enforce the new rules will only follow blocks that conform to the existing rules which will in turn cause miners to activate SegWit.A UASF could be enforced by any number of economic nodes, although hash power may only choose to follow such rules if there was significant economic weight behind it.Soft forks rely on the economic incentives of the majority of miners and economic actors to reject invalid blocks based on the new ruleset.Since the new BIP148 rules are a stricter set than the old rules, any chain split means the chain with the old rules would be in danger of being wiped out.If the majority of miners enforce the new ruleset, all blocks produced that are invalid in the new ruleset will become orphaned.

This economic incentive pushes miners to enforce the new rules.A UASF uses similar economic incentives.If the majority of hashing power enforces the new rules, chain splits remain temporary as with a solely miner enforced soft fork.If the majority of hashpower does not enforce the rules, a chain split would occur.If there is a greater demand for the blocks produced by the BIP148 miners, then profit-driven miners would eventually flock to this chain, leading to the orphaning of the pre-soft-fork chain.If the demand is less for the soft-fork chain, then both chains may co-exist indefinitely.No, BIP148 isn’t a hard fork.A hard fork is often confused with a chain split.A hard fork is a type of chain split where the rules are loosened to allow previously disallowed blocks or transactions.A soft fork is a tightening of the rules.A soft fork will result in a converged chain if the majority of hashpower enforces its rules.For a more detailed explanation of types of forks and chain splits, see Chain Splits and Resolutions.

Miner activated soft forks are a convenient shortcut to activating soft forks because it allows the changes to activate before a significant portion of the economy upgrades.The signalling process is just to coordinate when a supermajority of hashrate has upgraded, nodes can then activate and begin enforcing the new rules.It was never intended to be a vote although it has an unintentional veto where a small amount of hash power can hold up the process.Ultimately consensus is decided by the economic nodes in the ecosystem since they validate the chain and engage in economic activity.Ultimately even miner activated soft forks (MASF) are enforced by the nodes.The miners simply trigger activation in the nodes.A UASF forgoes the need for miner signalling because economic nodes are given more time to upgrade to the new rules and begin enforcing in the future.A UASF in no way impedes the operation of non-upgraded miners, nor disenfranchises them in any way.Miners always have the freedom to produce blocks following any rules they wish, but if they fall out of consensus with the economic nodes, their blocks will be rejected by the network.

Miners can always attack any chain at any time, but must do so by exerting real opportunity costs - they have to stop mining for profit.There are two main types of attacks.The first attack would be mining empty blocks.In the case of a chain split, this kind of attack would actually be beneficial - it would allow the chain to reach a difficulty retarget period faster.The second kind of attack is an active 51% attack on the chain.This type of attack requires a majority of hash power colluding to orphan valid blocks that have been mined.This kind of attack is always possible in Bitcoin, but can be defeated by changing the Proof of Work.These types of attacks are discouraged due to economic incentives- there typically is more to gain by cooperating than attacking.Both sides of a chain split will produce slower than normal blocks until the difficulty period resets.This time will be dependent on the allocation of hash power.For example, if 25% of the hash power was left on a chain, it would take four times as long (8 weeks) to reach a retarget period.

After this period, blocks would return to 10 minutes.Congestion would also likely result in higher fees, which would encourage more mining on this chain and faster blocks until equilibrium would be reached.This will depend on what type of wallet you use.In the case of a wallet using a centralized service’s nodes, make sure the nodes their service uses are upgraded.In the case of something like Electrum, make sure the Electrum server you are using is upgraded.Ultimately, any non-fully validating wallet will derive information about balances from a fully validating node.You must take whatever steps you have to in order to ensure your wallet is connected to an upgraded BIP148 nodes.Successful User Activated Soft Forks require a strong consensus from the economy to be successful.BIP148 also is subject to changes as it is reviewed, so some minor details may change before it is ready.Please check regulary to be up to date with the latest version.You can find software here - be sure to verify the signtures: BIP8 is a modification to BIP9.

BIP9 was the deployment mechanism for soft forks in the past that relied on miners signalling 95% readiness for activation.It was successfully used to activate BIP65 (OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY) and BIP68/BIP112/BIP113 (CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY/Median Time).BIP9 allows for upgrades to the system whenever a supermajority of miners are ready to enforce the changes, allowing for faster upgrades than a UASF may allow.Every 2016 blocks, if 95% of those blocks signalled readiness for the proposed change, the soft fork enforcement would become mandatory in 2016 blocks.Each change is given a fixed timeframe to achieve this activation, such that any change that is not activated may have its bit reused.Proposals that do not achieve activation expire at the end of their time period, but may be renewed if there is sufficient interest.BIP8 modifies BIP9 to automatically convert into a UASF at the end of its activation time.This avoids the problem of a miner veto while still allowing miners to begin enforcing the rules sooner than a pure UASF would allow.