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

[danielW]

I tried using the [addwitnessaddress address] in bitcoin core and go an error code 4 (segwit not activated on the network yet). Is there a reason for this does anyone know? The only thing I can think of is that my bitcoin core version is not fully synced yet with the network/blockchain and that might be causing the problem but other than that...

I would think that it is that. If its not synced it does not know segwit is activated yet.

[BurtW]

Would someone please write up a BIP for the SegWit signature algorithm implemented in Trezor and discussed here:

https://github.com/trezor/trezor-mcu/issues/169

So that we can kick start the process of having this become the industry standard algorithm for signatures based on SegWit addresses.

I am sorry but I do not have the time to write it up right now.

Thanks!

[OmegaStarScream]

I'm a bit confused here. If I ever send funds from a non-segwit address to a SegWit address (I will clearly not have the benefits of SegWit here) then what happens (whether its considered as a SegWit transaction or not) If spend that to another non-SegWit address?

[TryNinja]

I'm a bit confused here. If I ever send funds from a non-segwit address to a SegWit address (I will clearly not have the benefits of SegWit here) then what happens (whether its considered as a SegWit transaction or not) If spend that to another non-SegWit address?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC, a transaction is considered a "Segwit transaction" and have all its benefits if the funds have been sent from a Segwit address, regardless of the type of address the receiver has.

non-segwit to segwit = legacy transaction
segwit to non-segwit = segwit transaction

[ChromaticStar]

I'm having a really hard time understanding why there is so much disagreement over Segwit2x and Core. I've tried to find answers but everyone seems to have a different one. So far I've heard the following:

Segwit2x is supported by a corporate backed development team and only about money, not bitcoin. They are supporting the fork to divide us and kill Bitcoin. I don't know if this is true or not, but would like more info if someone has a reference.

Segwit2x is a hardfork and Core does not like to hardfork. Fair enough, but blocksize can't stay at 1 MB forever. Why would we split the community if we're going to need it down the road anyway.

Segwit2x is simply unnecessary. Read above.

Segwit2x code is unreliable and opens up new attack vectors. I didn't think this was anything other than a basic change of block size parameters and nothing else.

Segwit2x was for the big blockers who got their BCH.

According to this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Developers Core is unanimously opposed to Segwit2x. But why? What is so bad about it?

I don't know who's side I am suppose to be on. I'm inclined to side with the most talented of the group, which would be Core, but again why do they hate Segwit2x so much?

[achow101]

Segwit2x is supported by a corporate backed development team and only about money, not bitcoin. They are supporting the fork to divide us and kill Bitcoin. I don't know if this is true or not, but would like more info if someone has a reference.

Segwit2x was produced from essentially a backroom deal of only a bunch of companies. The "New York Agreement" was written beforehand and the signers were invited to just sign it. Some Bitcoin Core developers were invited, but only to sign the agreement. They weren't invited to discuss the proposal at all as it was already written, they were invited to stamp their approval on it. Those Bitcoin Core developers who were invited declined to go and sign the agreement. The agreement was written by companies and completely without any input from the technical community.

Segwit2x is a hardfork and Core does not like to hardfork. Fair enough, but blocksize can't stay at 1 MB forever. Why would we split the community if we're going to need it down the road anyway.

The block size has already been increased with segwit. We don't know how that exactly is going to effect things and increasing the block size again so soon will probably be detrimental to Bitcoin (note that there are a lot more things to consider than just the capacity of blocks). Changing things now may cause Bitcoin to be worse off in the future.

Segwit2x code is unreliable and opens up new attack vectors. I didn't think this was anything other than a basic change of block size parameters and nothing else.

Clearly you don't understand the code and how forks have been deployed in Bitcoin. Even for "simple" change, a lot still has to be done for it (deployment code, tests, etc). The 2x hard fork is very rushed and done without much or any review (of both code and technical merits). Furthermore, it is well known to the developers that there are many issues with larger block sizes which 2x does not address. Lastly the Bitcoin Core developers consider hard forks something that should rarely happen. Thus if a hard fork does happen, it should be planned out to happen well into the future and include a lot of things that need fixing via hard fork (e.g the things on the hard fork wishlist).

[ChromaticStar]

Segwit2x is supported by a corporate backed development team and only about money, not bitcoin. They are supporting the fork to divide us and kill Bitcoin. I don't know if this is true or not, but would like more info if someone has a reference.

Segwit2x was produced from essentially a backroom deal of only a bunch of companies. The "New York Agreement" was written beforehand and the signers were invited to just sign it. Some Bitcoin Core developers were invited, but only to sign the agreement. They weren't invited to discuss the proposal at all as it was already written, they were invited to stamp their approval on it. Those Bitcoin Core developers who were invited declined to go and sign the agreement. The agreement was written by companies and completely without any input from the technical community.

Segwit2x is a hardfork and Core does not like to hardfork. Fair enough, but blocksize can't stay at 1 MB forever. Why would we split the community if we're going to need it down the road anyway.

The block size has already been increased with segwit. We don't know how that exactly is going to effect things and increasing the block size again so soon will probably be detrimental to Bitcoin (note that there are a lot more things to consider than just the capacity of blocks). Changing things now may cause Bitcoin to be worse off in the future.

Segwit2x code is unreliable and opens up new attack vectors. I didn't think this was anything other than a basic change of block size parameters and nothing else.

Clearly you don't understand the code and how forks have been deployed in Bitcoin. Even for "simple" change, a lot still has to be done for it (deployment code, tests, etc). The 2x hard fork is very rushed and done without much or any review (of both code and technical merits). Furthermore, it is well known to the developers that there are many issues with larger block sizes which 2x does not address. Lastly the Bitcoin Core developers consider hard forks something that should rarely happen. Thus if a hard fork does happen, it should be planned out to happen well into the future and include a lot of things that need fixing via hard fork (e.g the things on the hard fork wishlist).

Thank you. You're right, I'm not a developer/miner/etc. and I don't understand all the code and everything all that well, which is why I'm here trying to learn more before the chain splits again. I do realize that forks are things that need to be thoroughly tested, both soft and hard. Also, I realize that hard forks are much more difficult to plan.

It looks like you're part of Core. This does give me a better idea of why you're opposed to it, though Core probably should voice their reasoning more publicly. To me, Core seems to be rather secretive and little is published about them in the crypto media, which is what most in the crypto community follow and all we hear is that Core is opposed. This fork is much more divisive than BCH, I really hope you're able get more miners/exchanges on your chain.

Could you elaborate on this some:

it is well known to the developers that there are many issues with larger block sizes which 2x does not address

Who can we expect to be the developers for the Segwit2x chain if Core stays on the old chain?

[achow101]

It looks like you're part of Core. This does give me a better idea of why you're opposed to it, though Core probably should voice their reasoning more publicly. To me, Core seems to be rather secretive and little is published about them in the crypto media, which is what most in the crypto community follow and all we hear is that Core is opposed.

"Core" is a group of developers. We aren't exactly social people nor are we affiliated with "crypto media". They tend to not write things about what we are doing even though virtually all discussion happens in the open. It is not that "Core" is secretive but rather we produce little content that the media can capitalize on to make stories (i.e. not much interesting stuff comes out that journalists can understand and write stories about; we don't have press releases or anything of the like) as nearly all discussions are technical in nature. Furthermore, "Core" is not an entity; it is not one cohesive thing with an opinion. It is made up of several individual developers who happen to work on the same thing. Very rarely does "Core" produce something unless nearly all of those individuals agree on the same thing and agree that it should be published. However "Core" has made their position very clear on 2x and this blog post: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2017/08/18/btc1-misleading-statements/ details what everyone in "Core" generally agrees with.

Could you elaborate on this some:

it is well known to the developers that there are many issues with larger block sizes which 2x does not address

The quadratic sighashing issue, although limited by a 1 MB tx limit, can still cause large blocks to take even longer to validate (on the order of several seconds, which to computers is ages). The memory blowup attack which, although is an implementation problem, AFAIK the fix is not present in btc1 (the segwit2x implementation). It is also not known whether the network can handle 8 MB blocks (that is what the effective maximum block size would be) and how that would effect block orphan rates and full node count.

Who can we expect to be the developers for the Segwit2x chain if Core stays on the old chain?

Jeff Garzik.

If 2x does somehow succeed, then most Bitcoin Core developers will quit Bitcoin entirely as 2x's success would mean that miners and companies can have absolute control over what Bitcoin does. Bitcoin would no longer be decentralized and be something that miners can change on a whim.

[ChromaticStar]

It looks like you're part of Core. This does give me a better idea of why you're opposed to it, though Core probably should voice their reasoning more publicly. To me, Core seems to be rather secretive and little is published about them in the crypto media, which is what most in the crypto community follow and all we hear is that Core is opposed.

"Core" is a group of developers. We aren't exactly social people nor are we affiliated with "crypto media". They tend to not write things about what we are doing even though virtually all discussion happens in the open. It is not that "Core" is secretive but rather we produce little content that the media can capitalize on to make stories (i.e. not much interesting stuff comes out that journalists can understand and write stories about; we don't have press releases or anything of the like) as nearly all discussions are technical in nature. Furthermore, "Core" is not an entity; it is not one cohesive thing with an opinion. It is made up of several individual developers who happen to work on the same thing. Very rarely does "Core" produce something unless nearly all of those individuals agree on the same thing and agree that it should be published. However "Core" has made their position very clear on 2x and this blog post: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2017/08/18/btc1-misleading-statements/ details what everyone in "Core" generally agrees with.

Could you elaborate on this some:

it is well known to the developers that there are many issues with larger block sizes which 2x does not address

The quadratic sighashing issue, although limited by a 1 MB tx limit, can still cause large blocks to take even longer to validate (on the order of several seconds, which to computers is ages). The memory blowup attack which, although is an implementation problem, AFAIK the fix is not present in btc1 (the segwit2x implementation). It is also not known whether the network can handle 8 MB blocks (that is what the effective maximum block size would be) and how that would effect block orphan rates and full node count.

Who can we expect to be the developers for the Segwit2x chain if Core stays on the old chain?

Jeff Garzik.

If 2x does somehow succeed, then most Bitcoin Core developers will quit Bitcoin entirely as 2x's success would mean that miners and companies can have absolute control over what Bitcoin does. Bitcoin would no longer be decentralized and be something that miners can change on a whim.

Thank you again.

[kijaki]

When you think we will see faster transactions and lower fees? I thought that should be a consequence of SegWit?

[Quickseller]

If 2x does somehow succeed, then most Bitcoin Core developers will quit Bitcoin entirely as 2x's success would mean that [...] companies can have absolute control over what Bitcoin does. [...]

To be fair, it is the bitcoin related companies that ultimately give Bitcoin utility (value), and whose opinions ultimately determine if any HF will be successful or not.

It should also be noted that it is the bitcoin related companies that have the most (really all) skin in the game in seeing that Bitcoin is ultimately successful.

I would also point out that if the core devs (that work for Blockstream) stop their development work on Bitcoin, then others will step in. The bitcoin related companies already actively employ many devs who could easily take over.

[achow101]

To be fair, it is the bitcoin related companies that ultimately give Bitcoin utility (value), and whose opinions ultimately determine if any HF will be successful or not.

Bitcoin's future should not be determined solely by companies. It should be determined by everyone who uses Bitcoin, not just the big companies. If big companies are able to dictate Bitcoin's future, then it is not decentralized and Bitcoin has failed.

I would also point out that if the core devs (that work for Blockstream) stop their development work on Bitcoin, then others will step in. The bitcoin related companies already actively employ many devs who could easily take over.

First of all, please stop spreading FUD. The majority of Core developers do not work for Blockstream. Other companies and developers can step in and start contributing to Bitcoin Core at any time that they want. Nothing and no one is stopping them. If they wanted to contribute to Bitcoin Core and actually develop Bitcoin itself, they should have been doing that a long time ago instead of just shouting around on social media complaining about Bitcoin Core. They have had the ability to do something and yet have failed to do anything except harass those who are actually doing something to try to make Bitcoin better.

[Carlton Banks]

To be fair, it is the bitcoin related companies that ultimately give Bitcoin utility (value), and whose opinions ultimately determine if any HF will be successful or not.

It should also be noted that it is the bitcoin related companies that have the most (really all) skin in the game in seeing that Bitcoin is ultimately successful.

Not really.

This would be true, if your preposition that bitcoin companies give Bitcoin it's utility (or value) was true, but it's not (and is certainly hotly debatable, so presenting that as a fait accomplis is especially laughable)

Additionally, the signatories of the NYA are a small proportion of actual Bitcoin companies in any case. And the number of renegers to the NYA has been picking up, the situation is more that Coinbase and Bitpay are far more easily replaceable than the most eminent programmers working in cryptography & distribute systems, come on now


It seems an awful lot like the Bitcoin companies that are pushing the Segwit2x fork are starting a propaganda & misinformation campaign, what do you think Quickseller? Kind of highlights the weakness of their position if they feel they need to do such a thing.

Why waste words when NYA Bitcoin companies' "opinions ultimately determine if any HF will be successful or not"? Maybe because their opinions count for nothing, and the users' (who are the target of the words) opinions are the actual determiner of the success of the hard fork?

[Quickseller]

The companies that have reneged on the NYA conduct very little business.


Coinbase and Bitpay (and similar) have a 'sticky' userbase that for the most part is apathetic towards which scaling solutions are implemented provided the cost of using Bitcoin is lower than the cost of using traditional fiat-based payment systems, and most importantly, these companies have significant user trust that is not easily replaceable. These companies also have elaborate customer service, regulatory compliance (among other) systems in place that takes significant time, expertise and investment to build up.


You cannot fork the Coinbase code, lower the fees a little bit and expect to do any meaningful amounts of business. The NYA on the other hand, literally forks the Bitcoin code, and there are plenty of qualified devs (even those that are not currently involved in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency) that can potentially work on Bitcoin in the future.

[anonymoustroll420]

To be fair, it is the bitcoin related companies that ultimately give Bitcoin utility (value), and whose opinions ultimately determine if any HF will be successful or not. It should also be noted that it is the bitcoin related companies that have the most (really all) skin in the game in seeing that Bitcoin is ultimately successful.

I agree (though I would say economy rather than companies to be more specific). However it is clear that after the hard fork the existing Bitcoin token will still have people wanting to trade it, miners wanting to mine it, and developers wanting to develop on it. Even when a majority of sha256 hashpower is mining another token the original token can stay secure by either changing the POW, allowing merge mining or some messy difficulty adjustment algorithm if thats what people want.

I would also point out that if the core devs (that work for Blockstream) stop their development work on Bitcoin, then others will step in. The bitcoin related companies already actively employ many devs who could easily take over.

I don't think the likes of coinbase employ developers knowledgeable in maintaining a distributed consensus system. Maintaining a project like Bitcoin is vastly different to a normal software project. The best c++ developer in the world is useless at maintaining Bitcoin if he does not have a deep understanding in a vast array of other skills needed, and the people who have those skills are likely able to earn much more money working outside the Bitcoinsphere in less stressful and hostile environments.

Just look at the background of many of the people who have worked on Bitcoin. Mike Hearn was one of the most known senior Google engineers prior to his involvement in Bitcoin (I would occasionally read his blog for SEO tips, it was very popular), and also worked for a GCHQ contractor as a SIGINT operative (according to his google+ profile) before he went to on work on Bitcoin. Greg Maxwell worked for Juniper networks and worked on the BGP protocol, a decentralized protocol used by ISP's to exchange routing information for IP addresses, a critical part of the internet itself. Adam Back has been working on e-cash systems for decades, invented Bitcoin's POW implementation (as we have all heard a million times by now) and worked for David Chaum's company DigiCash back in the 90's. Finding people with the level of skill some of these people have who would most likely have to be willing to work for less money in a high stress environment would be difficult, it's not impossible, just not something that could easily be done.

[Quickseller]

I don't think the likes of coinbase employ developers knowledgeable in maintaining a distributed consensus system. Maintaining a project like Bitcoin is vastly different to a normal software project. The best c++ developer in the world is useless at maintaining Bitcoin if he does not have a deep understanding in a vast array of other skills needed, and the people who have those skills are likely able to earn much more money working outside the Bitcoinsphere in less stressful and hostile environments.

Just look at the background of many of the people who have worked on Bitcoin. Mike Hearn was one of the most known senior Google engineers prior to his involvement in Bitcoin (I would occasionally read his blog for SEO tips, it was very popular), and also worked for a GCHQ contractor as a SIGINT operative (according to his google+ profile) before he went to on work on Bitcoin. Greg Maxwell worked for Juniper networks and worked on the BGP protocol, a decentralized protocol used by ISP's to exchange routing information for IP addresses, a critical part of the internet itself. Adam Back has been working on e-cash systems for decades, invented Bitcoin's POW implementation (as we have all heard a million times by now) and worked for David Chaum's company DigiCash back in the 90's. Finding people with the level of skill some of these people have who would most likely have to be willing to work for less money in a high stress environment would be difficult, it's not impossible, just not something that could easily be done.

I have posted previously speculation that the endgame of blockstream was to sell services related to confidential transactions AND confidential assets to banks to help with middle/back office functions of securities trading (blockstream is working on both confidential transactions and confidential assets projects). The amount of money to potentially be made for settlement services of securities trading well exceeds the market cap of bitcoin, even in its current bubble levels.

A lot of the features implemented into Bitcoin are not necessarily actively desired by the user base and/or economy, and are implemented in a very specific way so that there is excessive technical debt and broad community consensus is not obtained prior to implementing certain features. I would opine that many of the devs working on Bitcoin currently are probably overqualified. Nevertheless, major bitcoin related companies could fairly easily fund the development of Bitcoin as blockstream does currently.

[classicsucks]

Blockstream is a company that is building services on top of Bitcoin. And they've been the thorn in the side of sane scaling for Bitcoin for THREE YEARS now. I can't believe this arguing is still ongoing. It's really becoming rather pathetic watching people copy/paste the same arguments over and over.

Personally, I still hold BTC, but now choose to invest my time and money into Bitcoin Cash, as I believe it is superior technology that is unencumbered by the endless negativity, technical debt, and uncertainty in the BTC scene. Almost every day I hear positive news about Bitcoin Cash, such as "new exchange added", "new wallet launched", "new vendor accepting", and "tipping on the rise". It reminds of the good old BTC days here...

[ScripterRon]

The companies that have reneged on the NYA conduct very little business.


Coinbase and Bitpay (and similar) have a 'sticky' userbase that for the most part is apathetic towards which scaling solutions are implemented provided the cost of using Bitcoin is lower than the cost of using traditional fiat-based payment systems, and most importantly, these companies have significant user trust that is not easily replaceable. These companies also have elaborate customer service, regulatory compliance (among other) systems in place that takes significant time, expertise and investment to build up.


You cannot fork the Coinbase code, lower the fees a little bit and expect to do any meaningful amounts of business. The NYA on the other hand, literally forks the Bitcoin code, and there are plenty of qualified devs (even those that are not currently involved in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency) that can potentially work on Bitcoin in the future.

I live in NY and use Coinbase, Bittrex and BitPay.  Having jumped through all of the regulatory hoops to prove my identity, it is unlikely that I will switch to another set of companies.  And many companies do not do business with NY residents, as I have found out (no, I am not going to move to another state).  So I will use whatever software is required so that I can continue to work with bitcoins.

[ChromaticStar]

Blockstream is a company that is building services on top of Bitcoin. And they've been the thorn in the side of sane scaling for Bitcoin for THREE YEARS now. I can't believe this arguing is still ongoing. It's really becoming rather pathetic watching people copy/paste the same arguments over and over.

Personally, I still hold BTC, but now choose to invest my time and money into Bitcoin Cash, as I believe it is superior technology that is unencumbered by the endless negativity, technical debt, and uncertainty in the BTC scene. Almost every day I hear positive news about Bitcoin Cash, such as "new exchange added", "new wallet launched", "new vendor accepting", and "tipping on the rise". It reminds of the good old BTC days here...

So how are you going to scale to global acceptance? If more and more people started using BCH, and all transactions were on the main chain, pretty soon you wouldn't have 8 MB blocks, but 8 GB blocks every 10 minutes. A block chain growing faster than the streaming capacity of almost everyone's internet connection. Please, BCH is a shitcoin, it can not scale. Lightning network is the only alternative. Try looking at ETH's blockchain growth rate and you'll see why Vitalik and team are trying so hard to solve their scaling problems for it to survive.

[classicsucks]

Blockstream is a company that is building services on top of Bitcoin. And they've been the thorn in the side of sane scaling for Bitcoin for THREE YEARS now. I can't believe this arguing is still ongoing. It's really becoming rather pathetic watching people copy/paste the same arguments over and over.

Personally, I still hold BTC, but now choose to invest my time and money into Bitcoin Cash, as I believe it is superior technology that is unencumbered by the endless negativity, technical debt, and uncertainty in the BTC scene. Almost every day I hear positive news about Bitcoin Cash, such as "new exchange added", "new wallet launched", "new vendor accepting", and "tipping on the rise". It reminds of the good old BTC days here...

So how are you going to scale to global acceptance? If more and more people started using BCH, and all transactions were on the main chain, pretty soon you wouldn't have 8 MB blocks, but 8 GB blocks every 10 minutes. A block chain growing faster than the streaming capacity of almost everyone's internet connection. Please, BCH is a shitcoin, it can not scale. Lightning network is the only alternative. Try looking at ETH's blockchain growth rate and you'll see why Vitalik and team are trying so hard to solve their scaling problems for it to survive.

What does "scale to global acceptance" mean?   Scaling is one thing, and global acceptance is another.  Blockstream's wonderful work killing Bitcoin caused the tech world to accept and embrace other cryptos. There is no "one coin to rule them all". If you put together the top 10 cryptos (excluding premines and tokens), their networks and blockchains can easily accommodate billions in daily volume. Even the most foaming-at-the-mouth Kore fanboi must admit that BCH simply has 8x the capacity of BTC. It's simple math.

Your average joe is not going to care what crypto they use, as long as the value hold steady or keeps going up.  And I can tell you now that they won't be using Lightning...

Funny you should mention ETH's scaling - it's pretty horrible, but at least Vitalik is not artificially limiting it!