Lack of consensus: segwit2x organizers announce suspension of planned hard fork

The organizers of a controversial bitcoin software upgrade have announced they are pausing efforts to increase the block size via a hard fork.

The initiative, called segwit2x, or 2x for short, which was initially backed by a wide range of bitcoin startups and mining pools, was supposed to trigger a hard fork at block 494,784 (slated to happen on November 16) to increase the block size. According to participants, the goal of the project was to use this approach to increase transaction capacity, which is currently limited by software rules.

Mike Belshe, CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin wallet software provider BitGo, announced the news in an email today. As one of the main leaders of the segwit2x project, he believes that the segwit2x expansion proposal is too controversial to continue.

He wrote:

“Unfortunately, it has become clear that we have not been able to build sufficient consensus for a blocksize increase at this time. Continuing on the current course could potentially divide the community and hinder Bitcoin’s growth. This is not what Segwit2x wanted.”

He added, “As a result, we are pausing this upcoming 2MB block size upgrade.”

The notice’s signatories also include some of the companies that initially supported segwit2x and attended the New York Consensus conference in May, such as Xapo CEO Wences Casares, Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu, Bloq CEO and co-founder Jeff Garzik, Blockchain CEO and co-founder Peter Smith, and Shapeshift CEO and founder Erik Voorhees.

The group said they still hope to increase the block size once they gain enough consensus from stakeholders.

In a statement posted to the BTC1 Slack team, segwit2x lead developer Jeff Garzik said the alternative software will continue to be developed and may support “other blockchains such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin and other Bitcoin-based blockchains.”