[2017-08-08] It's Official: Segregated Witness Will Activate on Bitcoin

[sheld0n]

Segregated Witness (SegWit) has reached its lock-in threshold. The long-debated scaling upgrade reached the necessary threshold to "lock in" today at block 479,707 with 100% of bitcoin mining pools signaling support for the proposal. According to network data, the block was mined by BitClub. But the change won't officially lock-in until tomorrow, once the signaling period has ended. Further, the change will be unusable, as CoinDesk described in more depth, for a couple more weeks. Article on Coindesk

[Rahar02]

Still, there are 2 weeks before segwit be activated and I guess this 'grace period' will be the crucial time for everyone to buy and sell due to pump and dump that might be happen. Bitcoin price has reached the new ATH in most exchanges and it seems rise up steadily, good thing for us. And look at how much unconfirmed transactions that waiting to be included into blockchain, over 28K and increase rapidly https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions
I always assume, if unconfirmed transactions increase, then people in hurry to deposit bitcoin into exchanges, or some people keep spam attack to the network, maybe. But, anything about it, we would like to get faster confirmation time and low fees, 120 sat per byte is fair I guess.

[Kemarit]

Still, there are 2 weeks before segwit be activated and I guess this 'grace period' will be the crucial time for everyone to buy and sell due to pump and dump that might be happen. Bitcoin price has reached the new ATH in most exchanges and it seems rise up steadily, good thing for us. And look at how much unconfirmed transactions that waiting to be included into blockchain, over 28K and increase rapidly https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions
I always assume, if unconfirmed transactions increase, then people in hurry to deposit bitcoin into exchanges, or some people keep spam attack to the network, maybe. But, anything about it, we would like to get faster confirmation time and low fees, 120 sat per byte is fair I guess.

ETA ≈Wed, 09 Aug 2017 12:21:19 GMT before the official lock-in. I tried to sent using my Electrum wallet to a exchange using 120 sat/byte and it took me I think about an hour to get the 6 confirmations if I'm not mistaken. I think this is very quick as opposed to the more than 6 hours we are used to seeing. And I guess the fee is quite fair as well I also believed that people are making a lot of transaction now because it is now very quick. Spam attack has lessen to a certain extent making transactions easy and no waiting for longer confirmation. The price will rise definitely because of this Segwit activation, but I think it will be a slow but steady phase before reaching $4000. IMHO.

[VasyaPupkin]

Still, there are 2 weeks before segwit be activated and I guess this 'grace period' will be the crucial time for everyone to buy and sell due to pump and dump that might be happen. Bitcoin price has reached the new ATH in most exchanges and it seems rise up steadily, good thing for us. And look at how much unconfirmed transactions that waiting to be included into blockchain, over 28K and increase rapidly https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions
I always assume, if unconfirmed transactions increase, then people in hurry to deposit bitcoin into exchanges, or some people keep spam attack to the network, maybe. But, anything about it, we would like to get faster confirmation time and low fees, 120 sat per byte is fair I guess.

ETA ≈Wed, 09 Aug 2017 12:21:19 GMT before the official lock-in. I tried to sent using my Electrum wallet to a exchange using 120 sat/byte and it took me I think about an hour to get the 6 confirmations if I'm not miskane. I think this is very quick as opposed to the more than 6 hours we are used to seeing. And I guess the fee is quite fair as well I also believed that people are making a lot of transaction now because it is now very quick. Spam attack has lessen to a certain extent making transactions easy and no waiting for longer confirmation. The price will rise definitely because of this Segwit activation, but I think it will be a slow but steady phase before reaching $4000. IMHO.

Bitcoin is getting stronger, thanks to these technological improvements. I like it very much, because it makes it easier to use bitcoin. Bitcoin becomes more stable and it attracts investors and gives a boost to price growth

[1Referee]

And look at how much unconfirmed transactions that waiting to be included into blockchain, over 28K and increase rapidly https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions
I always assume, if unconfirmed transactions increase, then people in hurry to deposit bitcoin into exchanges, or some people keep spam attack to the network, maybe. But, anything about it, we would like to get faster confirmation time and low fees, 120 sat per byte is fair I guess.

I have several times had more than 100K of unconfirmed transactions in my node's mempool. In that regard, the 28K that you are talking about is literally peanuts. An increasing price definitely contributes towards more transactions, but the spam attacks are the only really making the fees go up. At this point there aren't many signs of an ongoing spam attack (at least not a major one), but it won't take very long before we see one get initiated as they happen to pop up from time to time. Segwit or not, there is no way to get faster confirmations, other than to include a proper enough fee to make your transaction be included in the next first block.

[richardsNY]

Segwit or not, there is no way to get faster confirmations, other than to include a proper enough fee to make your transaction be included in the next first block.

I think this is exactly the reason why the Lightning Network will be a game changer for people looking to get fast and insanely low cost transactions. It will stimulate Bitcoin usage in third world countries, where they right now pretty much don't see any value in using something so expensive. SegWit is the first step towards Lightning Network since larger blocks are a must. Only then people won't be totally dependent on miners finding blocks.