“Small Block Size” is one of the major challenges in the previous protocol of the Bitcoin blockchain. Due to this severe problem, very limited transactions were processed. To amend this challenge a fascinating technology came into being that is SegWit2X which is a change in Bitcoin protocol to process more transactions at low transaction fees. Today, in this article we will deep dive into the SegWit2X Bitcoin protocol so let’s get started!
What Is SegWit2x and What Does It Mean for Bitcoin?
As the old version of the Bitcoin protocol had a fixed block size of 1MB, which means very limited transactions were executed and it took a lot of time leading to high transaction fees. To address this issue increasing block size was a must. SegWit2X was proposed to address this issue and the block size increased from 1MB to 2MB.
Before the implementation of SegWit2X transactions included the header (metadata) and the actual data, which ultimately required large space to process. But after the SegWit2X solution Bitcoin protocol was changed, it segregated transactions into two parts and separated them. One part is metadata and the other part is actual data. As a result of separation, more space is free and utilized for more transactions. This approach increases the speed of the transaction which ultimately leads to a low transaction fee.
SegWit2x was a controversial proposal because it split the Bitcoin community into two groups one was with the SegWit and their argument was that SegWit2X was important to implement to increase the transaction throughput and the low transaction fee. On the other hand, the 2nd group was against this solution and their arguments were totally against this technology that was "SegWit2X could be a centralized network which can violate the decentralized network and they also have some security concerns".
After a large debate among community members, Bitcoin decided to abandon SegWit2X in 2017. And Bitcoin continued with its actual block size which is 1MB among the utilization of SegWit implementation.
Final Words
Overall, Due to the low block size of Bitcoin, investors had to face many challenges such as low transaction throughput with high transaction fees. These were the common issues that were becoming the headache of the users day by day. As a result, SegWit2X was proposed, in which the block size was increased from 1MB to 2MB, and when the transaction was ready to be processed, its signature part separated from the actual data so in this way more transactions could be processed. But right after the implementation of SegWit2X, most of the community was against it so that's why it was shut down by the owners.
