SegWit2x public beta code is officially released, and the UAHF plan plans to remove the 1MB block size limit

On Saturday, July 1, the SegWit2x team finally officially released the public beta version 1.14.3. On the same day, a new implementation called User Activated Soft Fork (UAHF) was officially available for download.

SegWit2x public beta codebase has been released

In the process of Bitcoin development, many things are done behind the scenes, especially for expansion. Last weekend, the SegWit2x code was officially released, and SegWit2x main developer Jeff Garzik also posted a message on the Bitcoin developer mailing list. According to the Github report, this public beta version includes various bug fixes and consensus changes.

The SegWit2x public beta announcement explained:

“The charter and goals of SegWit2x have always been tightly centered around the “SegWit+2MB hard fork” secure network upgrade, and producing/testing/auditing software to accomplish this goal. Both the alpha and beta releases are milestones for SegWit2x and should set expectations based on them.”

The order of this network upgrade is simply: bit-4 SegWit activation - 144*90 blocks, which matches the goals outlined when the project was launched: "SegWit will be mandatory shortly after lock-in, and 2mb will be activated after a period of time to ensure that a large number of users have upgraded their nodes."

Bitcoin advocates who frequently voice their opinions on social networks and forums are still very mixed about SegWit2x. As more and more mining pools begin to support SegWit2x, as of press time, the number of mining pools that "intend" to signal support for SegWit2x has reached 84.7%.

User Activated Soft Fork (UAHF) Code “Bitcoin ABC” Officially Announced

At the “Future of Bitcoin” event in Arnhem, Netherlands, software engineer Amaury Séchet unveiled a UAHF implementation codenamed “Bitcoin ABC.”

Séchet explained the ABC protocol to the event attendees and said it complies with a recent emergency plan statement from Bitmain. However, Bitmain has not released any official statement endorsing the Bitcoin ABC project. During the meeting, the developer answered questions about the new implementation and said that ABC does not support SegWit or the Replacement By Fee (RBF) component. The fork will also remove the 1MB block size limit and will follow its UAHF specification, which is publicly available for review on Github.

The UAHF manual explains:

“The parameters for this UAHF were inspired by a flag day, but changed to a time-based fork due to miner demand. It should be easy to change to a height-based fork. — The meaning of these requirements remain largely unchanged.”

Additionally, the team revealed that its vision is to “achieve usable block sizes in the coming years” — expanding the block size to 16MB by August 2019. Séchet also announced at the event that the project is receiving help from an anonymous developer called “Ftrader.” The developer has created a Bitcoin ABC Reddit subreddit, and Ftrader has been answering questions, as well as creating a website. The team’s website has Bitcoin ABC binaries and code available for download.

With the SegWit2x beta code release, this new UAHF code, and the current UASF, it looks like Bitcoin scaling will be very busy this summer, and we’ll be following the various scaling solutions as they emerge.