The debate between SegWit and BU supporters is far from over, even though not much has changed these past few days. That being said, it is evident SegWit is getting outpaced by quite a margin in terms of support by mining pools. More than one-third of the miners still doesn’t care all that much about this discussion, though.
SegWit Loses Ground As BU And Classic Climb
One thing that is interesting to take into account is how Bitcoin Unlimited and Bitcoin Classic are always thrown together to create these type of pie charts. Considering how both protocols are supported by virtually the same people, that is not entirely surprising at this stage. It somewhat skews the numbers a bit, but for the sake of argument, we will use the numbers presented to us.
Today is exactly 4 months since the #SegWit voting started. Here’s a fresh chart showing #SegWit vs. @BitcoinUnlimit vs. Do nothing ? pic.twitter.com/rpzJ8OQD8G
— Nikita Zhavoronkov (@nikzh) March 18, 2017
It is evident Segregated Witness support is growing over the past month, although not by much. A month ago, 23.7% of mining supported Segwit signaling, compared to 27.2% today. Keeping in mind how signaling started four months ago, things are not looking all that great by any means. Growth is positive, but after 4 months of signaling, one would expect to see at least 40% support or more right now.
Bitcoin Unlimited, combined with Bitcoin Classic, has been faring a lot better as of late. With 38.5% network support, this solution seems to be in a better position to activate on the network. Then again, it is important to keep in mind some of the BU mining pools deliberately pay miners out of their own pocket to prop up the numbers. There is nothing wrong with this tactic, yet the miners will always choose the path that increases their profits. Once this bonus profit drops off, things may start to look very differently for Bitcoin Unlimited.
Interestingly enough, 34.3% of all miners has still not voted on how they want to proceed. It is also possible a large portion of these users feels there is no reason to change anything, although that has not been confirmed at this stage. If Bitcoin Unlimited can persuade a few more miners, this solution has enough hashpower to successfully activate on the network. Doing so would result in BTU being labeled as an altcoin, though, which would create a rather disturbing ecosystem.
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