Yesterday was a high moment for Bitcoin history, well so we thought. What was believed to be a huge turning point for the whole Bitcoin scaling drama, may actually be just a next chapter in the drama yet to be concluded. I happily reported to everyone yesterday that the powers that be surrounding Bitcoin had finally reached consensus that Segwit should be activated. Yet once again, today dives right back into the drama power play game and uncertainty seems to be reporting all over the place over a full true consensus for Segwit activation.
Here comes the Roger Ver camp once again!!
It was reported that Roger Ver was in support of this consensus, but through a REDDIT post Roger Ver was found stating this:
"I wasn't there in person, but my understanding is that the two MB hard fork must come first. SegWit only activates if it gets 80 percent hash rate support.”
This detractor statement from Ver goes completely against the grain of the consensus agreement. In the approved and public agreement it was stated that a hard fork, 2 MB block size should kick in later and roughly 6 months from initial Segwit signaling. As you can read by the recent Roger Ver statement though, it appears he rather go with that hard fork first which may mean this consensus is not as unanimous as we were led to believe yesterday. (for the full original Consensus agreement click here: Bitcoin Scaling Agreement at Consensus 2017
Here comes more detractors: The "FrankenSegWit" statement
Roger Ver appears to not be alone with this issue today. It turns out that MIT’s Jeremy Rubin who also is a Bitcoin Core dev has also Tweeted out a 30 point list of why Barry Silbert announcement about SegWit consensus will not work. You may find his full list of issues here: The Jeremy Rubin Segwit Concern List. After reading this list I do suggest everyone to take a quick look at his list at that link, just for neutrality so we are all more educated on what each side is saying for future references.
Then came the most hilarious side to this about face situation. Greg Maxwell (CTO, Blockstream) and Eric Lombrozo (Co-CEO, Ciphrex) had opinions on this matter as well. The former cited the Segwit Consensus plan as “FrankenSegWit” and personally this author who has spent the year reading in between this drama must agree, anything going on within Bitcoin lately does seem to be growing into its own unique "Monster from Hell"
So what in the hell does this really mean for us, you know the day to day Bitcoin users??
That is the question I am sure all of us out there is asking. When will a true unanimous decision be made and when will the correct button be pushed to turn around the issues surrounding our golden empire of Bitcoin? I am leading to believe and please only take this as my personal observation, I have no inside info on these matters but I tend to notice these late rants are actually positive for us Bitcoin users.
The last few months have been clearly a division, will Segwit win, will Bitcoin Unlimited kick up into action? But now we are all closer to the real talks and to me it appears that where we were seeing a division, we are now seeing efforts on all sides to decide a correct path so Bitcoin can move forward and put these issues to bed. The fact a few are questioning and opposing the news of yesterday that consensus was made is not a real huge factor to me. As long as they keep communication going and working on the ironing out of the problems as a team, then for us average users we will finally have a set outcome soon and get back to investing with a clearer conscience.
THIS THOUGH IS MY HUGEST BITCOIN CONCERN BESIDES THE SLOW TRANSACTIONS!!
That chart was taken only 10 minutes ago. its a screenshot I took of the current trend of rising transaction fees in Bitcoin. This is an area I truly hope they address because that chart is horrible to look at. For the rich, not a huge factor...still cost effective to move thousands of dollars but for us little guys just trying to make ends meet, those fees are really starting to add up and why I believe the Altcoin bubble may need to continue so we have a fighting chance with the fee situation in Bitcoin.
I actually spent 3 hours today trying to find my readers info on the current side as to what they plan to do about these fees. Sadly there is really not much out there more than user to user speculation. I couldn't even find within the Segwit plans how exactly the fees will be dealt with and the outcome of potential to lower them. We get as users that the price is rising, that transactions are getting backlogged but as the value goes up so are the fees which will at this rate make fiat start looking better and that I am not too happy about myself. I hope in the long run, the Segwit mess gets a finally swift approval and they focus on the bigger issues coming of letting that chart above skyrocket on us Bitcoin users.