Post your SegWit questions here - open discussion - big week for Bitcoin!

[will_k]

after segwit is activated, is it possible to revert the change and soft fork back to without segwit? or will the technical debt be too high to do that too?

[achow101]

after segwit is activated, is it possible to revert the change and soft fork back to without segwit? or will the technical debt be too high to do that too?

Reverting a soft fork requires a hard fork. It has nothing to do with technical debt.

[Quickseller]

after segwit is activated, is it possible to revert the change and soft fork back to without segwit? or will the technical debt be too high to do that too?

Reverting a soft fork requires a hard fork. It has nothing to do with technical debt.

It won't be able to revert SW even with a hard fork. Doing so would allow the miners to steal all btc in SW unspent outputs.

[Hannu]

How SegWit signaling works? 

[Fatman3001]

sry guyz, SN says no.

back to the drawing board.

[Zicadis]

Was reading about Segwit here so from what i understand a hardfork is basically making bitcoin more like an alt and a softfork will just enhance transaction speeds and not necessary changing existing code...as the 'bitcoin core' camp intends to just make transactions smaller which still keeps it as bitcoin unlike bitcoin unlimited which changes the chemistry of bitcoin to an altcoin...If it sounds as simple as that why is this still debatable??? BU is an alt nothing more....who are the real stake holders to implement these changes

[phatsphere]

... so from what i understand ...

yes, from a high point of view it's not hard to understand. a softfork introduces tighter rules, which make some commands that are now always true not always true in the future. that's why it's backwards compatible, because older clients will still accept the newer stuff. a hardfork truly changes a rule, which makes it no longer backwards compatible and there will be instances of a test for a rule, which is true right now will no longer be true with BU.

[Fatman3001]

Is there any comprehensive paper/analysis written on the implications of SegWit on Bitcoins incentive structure?

[SHAWN-MIDWAYS]

correct me were am wrong if segwit removes the signatures from the data that is hashed to become the transaction id (witness data)

does it mean we shall no longer be able to sign messages when its activated 

[achow101]

Is there any comprehensive paper/analysis written on the implications of SegWit on Bitcoins incentive structure?

Here's an analysis by Andreas Antonopoulos about how segwit affects incentive to run full nodes: https://segwit.org/segregated-witness-and-aligning-economic-incentives-with-resource-costs-7d987b135c00.

correct me were am wrong if segwit removes the signatures from the data that is hashed to become the transaction id (witness data)

does it mean we shall no longer be able to sign messages when its activated 

Signing messages has nothing to do with transactions. You can still sign messages when segwit is activated.

clonk! clonk! clonk!

Is this still on?

Where did everybody go?

Dude, you posted your question today, cool it. Not everyone who can comment on this will be online in the 4 hours between when you made your post and now.

[Fatman3001]

Is there any comprehensive paper/analysis written on the implications of SegWit on Bitcoins incentive structure?

Here's an analysis by Andreas Antonopoulos about how segwit affects incentive to run full nodes: https://segwit.org/segregated-witness-and-aligning-economic-incentives-with-resource-costs-7d987b135c00.

Ok, I see I should have been more specific. Part of the deal with SegWIt is that it more easily allows for second layer solutions. I don't see the effect of these being discussed in Antonopolous' analysis.

[achow101]

Ok, I see I should have been more specific. Part of the deal with SegWIt is that it more easily allows for second layer solutions. I don't see the effect of these being discussed in Antonopolous' analysis.

That's not a question related to segwit then. You should look into how LN changes things, not segwit. Segwit itself does not allow for second layer solutions. It just makes implementing them much much easier. Second layer solutions like LN can still exist and function even without segwit, it is just more complicated to make secure.

[Fatman3001]

Ok, I see I should have been more specific. Part of the deal with SegWIt is that it more easily allows for second layer solutions. I don't see the effect of these being discussed in Antonopolous' analysis.

That's not a question related to segwit then. You should look into how LN changes things, not segwit. Segwit itself does not allow for second layer solutions. It just makes implementing them much much easier. Second layer solutions like LN can still exist and function even without segwit, it is just more complicated to make secure.

Well, then it is clearly relevant to anyone considering adopting SegWit.

[mad3]

SegWit needs 95% of the miners to upgrade.  You can look at the block version to see if the miner has updated (version is x'2000002' for SegWit).  So far, I'm seeing around 1 block in 10 that has the SegWit version.  So there is a long ways to go yet.  I already have a SegWit transaction in the blockchain just waiting for the support to be locked in (you can create a P2SH-P2WPKH transaction but you can't spend it yet).

[bitkilo]

I think the question a lot of people want answered is if/when segwit is activated how will this change the way i use bitcoin the next day, apart from the address being different what other changes would i notice?
Would my transactions be faster and cheaper?

At present probably 95% of my transactions make it into the next block or 2 with the correct fee added so i don't see this block size debate as the mad rush problem some people in the industry are portraying it to be.

I know some people who send large transactions with many inputs a couple of times a week and the fees on those tx's add up pretty quickly but for the average user like myself there just seems to be more hype going on about this than the problem is bad, we have time and a $20 billion dollar industry should not be rushed.

[S.Clegane]

How segwit activation works?

1) Voting?
2) Yes/No
3) Locked in? (what that means)
4) activating
5) done?

Could someone explain simply segwit integration stages?
Thanks

[achow101]

How segwit activation works?

1) Voting?
2) Yes/No
3) Locked in? (what that means)
4) activating
5) done?

Could someone explain simply segwit integration stages?
Thanks

There is no voting, there is only signalling. Signalling is not the same as voting.

Segwit uses BIP 9 for deployment. After the starting date (Nov 15th 2016 for segwit), miners can signal that they are ready to enforce the segwit rules by setting a specific bit in the version numbers of their blocks. This state is known as "Started". Once at least 1916 blocks in a 2016 block difficulty retarget period have signalled for segwit, the next retarget period will be in a state called "locked in". Locked in means that it will activate once that retarget period ends. The point of this time is to let everyone know that segwit will activate and give them time to update their nodes and wallets to support segwit if they want to use its features as soon as possible. Once the locked in retarget period ends, the state changes to "Active" and the segwit rules will be active.

[S.Clegane]

How segwit activation works?

1) Voting?
2) Yes/No
3) Locked in? (what that means)
4) activating
5) done?

Could someone explain simply segwit integration stages?
Thanks

There is no voting, there is only signalling. Signalling is not the same as voting.

Segwit uses BIP 9 for deployment. After the starting date (Nov 15th 2016 for segwit), miners can signal that they are ready to enforce the segwit rules by setting a specific bit in the version numbers of their blocks. This state is known as "Started". Once at least 1916 blocks in a 2016 block difficulty retarget period have signalled for segwit, the next retarget period will be in a state called "locked in". Locked in means that it will activate once that retarget period ends. The point of this time is to let everyone know that segwit will activate and give them time to update their nodes and wallets to support segwit if they want to use its features as soon as possible. Once the locked in retarget period ends, the state changes to "Active" and the segwit rules will be active.

Thanks mate, it helped a lot.

[mda]

I read everywhere SegWit and 1MB block or SegWit and 2MB block. But these numbers are sort of misleading for traffic estimation since there is also present a witness part?

[achow101]

I read everywhere SegWit and 1MB block or SegWit and 2MB block. But these numbers are sort of misleading for traffic estimation since there is also present a witness part?

Yes. Segwit and 1 MB block means that the non-witness space of a block is 1 MB, and witness space is 3 MB, so the entire block is actually 4 MB. Segwit and 2 MB block means that non-witness space of a block is 2 MB and witness space is 6 MB so the entire block is actually 8 MB.