What is SegWit! and what are its effect on transactions.

[Chevas Regal]

Curious about the title 

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[rapazev]

you might never heard of it but there is this amazing tool we call google, you should try it some time.
if you already did some search and still have some doubts, please, be more specific.

anyway, here's some help...

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/06/24/segwit-next-steps/

[achow101]

Segregated Witness (segwit) is a soft fork which defines a new set of output scripts which will have their signatures located in a new witness part of the transaction. That witness area is not used for calculating the transaction id, thus completely removing transaction malleability. Segwit also defines a new sighashing algorithm for determining the data that is signed for those new output types. This new algorithm makes sighashing linear instead of quadratic. Segwit also replaces the maximum block size with a maximum block weight, which is similar to block size. The witness part of the transaction is given a weight factor of one while the rest of the transaction receives a weight factor of 3.

Read this: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/ for more information

If you want the full technical details, read BIPs 141, 143, and 144.

[Hanslo]

But SegWit! has no effect that transactions are better or go faster. Bitcoin is still as hopeless as payment when it takes up to several hours to get the payment confirmed.

[Slark]

At this point we don't know if SegWit will be even activated. Bitcoin Core was upgraded with SegWit's code but it doesn't mean the upgrade is automatically live.
Miners will decide if they want to support SegWit and AFAIK there are some mining pools which don't want this upgrade - for example ViaBTC supports Bitcoin Unlimited instead.

[Lauda]

Bitcoin is still as hopeless as payment when it takes up to several hours to get the payment confirmed.

False. Transaction time is almost instant, and confirmation time is 10 minutes on average.

At this point we don't know if SegWit will be even activated. Bitcoin Core was upgraded with SegWit's code but it doesn't mean the upgrade is automatically live.

The question was not whether Segwit will active or not, was it?

for example ViaBTC supports Bitcoin Unlimited instead.

If the owner wants to act like a fool, let them be.

[Hanslo]

Bitcoin is still as hopeless as payment when it takes up to several hours to get the payment confirmed.

False. Transaction time is almost instant, and confirmation time is 10 minutes on average.

Not false. My last transaction took 4 hours, but even 10 minuts is to long when you are in a store to pay.

[Lauda]

Not false. My last transaction took 4 hours,

You aren't using Bitcoin properly, i.e. your fee is too low. The highest time that an experienced user can reach is ~1 hour (due to the block generation function).

but even 10 minuts is to long when you are in a store to pay.

That's likely not going to change. Besides, the store could accept zero-confirmation transactions for smaller amounts of $. They will probably have a video recording of you doing the purchase anyways, so attempting to double spend would be unwise (hence the risk is *almost* mitigated indirectly).

[doc12]

I never had to wait longer then one block for a confirm. Just pay 20k sats fee and you will be fine.

IMO this "my transaction is not confirmed since days"-blabla ist mostly Bigblockers/BU - FUD.

[Hanslo]

I never had to wait longer then one block for a confirm. Just pay 20k sats fee and you will be fine.

IMO this "my transaction is not confirmed since days"-blabla ist mostly Bigblockers/BU - FUD.

You says nothing about how long you waiting for that one block.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time