ViaBTC: Bitcoin miners reject SegWit for no technical reasons

Given the overwhelming support for Segwit2x, it’s clear that miners are not opposed to the Bitcoin Core development team’s idea of ​​using Segregated Witness (Segwit) to solve transaction malleability. Segwit2x (also known as the New York Consensus) is a scaling consensus plan signed by Digital Currency Group (DCG) led by Barry Silbert and 57 other companies, including major mining pool operator Bitmain.

Currently, the hashrate that supports Segwit2x activation has exceeded 90% . The plan proposes that if the 80% activation threshold is reached before September, Segregated Witness will be activated, and then a 2MB hard fork will be executed within the next 6 months. The key part of this plan is to activate Segregated Witness, and given the current 90% support rate among miners, it is clear that they are inclined to activate Segregated Witness.

One of the conditions proposed by the miners is to implement a 2MB block size hard fork in accordance with the Hong Kong Consensus signed in February 2016. Most miners believe that optimizing the block size by 75% by activating Segregated Witness and using second-layer payment channels such as Lightning is not enough to solve the problems brought about by the explosive growth of the Bitcoin industry and user base.

However, the growing support for Segwit2x has proven to the industry and the community that miners are not against Segwit for technical reasons. In fact, large mining pool operator ViaBTC recently said:

The main reason (miners) reject SegWit lies in the development path of Bitcoin Core, not the technical details.

The ViaBTC development team revealed that the reason they and many Chinese mining companies such as Bitmain’s Antpool have been opposing SegWit is that they are against the development path planned by the Bitcoin Core development team. In particular, ViaBTC mentioned in a blog post earlier this year that they opposed Bitcoin Core’s plan to use SegWit as a scaling solution.

Segregated Witness, as a soft fork solution to scalability, cannot solve the capacity problem. From the public statements of Core members, it can be seen that they do not take this issue seriously. Even if Segregated Witness can slightly increase the block capacity with the new transaction format after activation, it is still far from meeting the needs of the development of the Bitcoin network.

However, another solution provided by Segregated Witness is a second-layer architecture such as the Lightning Network. This architecture can open up a wide range of services and applications based on Bitcoin, and more importantly, this solution can greatly reduce transaction fees through the application of payment channels.

ViaBTC and Bitmain share the same view on this point. They believe that the deployment of the Lightning Network and payment channels will lead to the centralization of transactions, and transactions will shift from direct peer-to-peer (P2P) on the chain to a form based on payment channels.

So far, Bitcoin Core, the industry, and the community have been straightforward about the path forward for scaling: reduce transaction malleability by activating SegWit, thereby increasing security measures, provide better infrastructure for hardware wallets, and build an application platform for second-layer solutions in order to achieve long-term scaling capabilities.

The scaling debate has begun to make some progress with the compromise of miners - completing the 2MB hard fork based on the activation of SegWit. Given that the mining community's opposition to the separate activation of SegWit is not for technical reasons, the Bitcoin industry will see significant progress in the coming weeks.