Segregated Witness has gained support from more than a quarter of nodes, and Unlimited may become the biggest obstacle

Bitcoin network data shows that 25% of the world's nodes are running Segregated Witness (SegWit) code.

Segregated Witness was proposed last year as a way to expand the bitcoin network. Last month, Bitcoin Core, a volunteer development community for bitcoin, rolled out the update in its latest version. SegWit is designed to help increase the network's transaction capacity without increasing the block size limit, and has received mixed reviews from the bitcoin community.

According to network data, the Bitcoin Core version that includes SegWit currently has the highest market share among node operators.

Bitnodes reports that more than 25% of Bitcoin nodes are currently running the latest version of Core, 0.13.1, which includes the SegWit code. The data service calculates that 1,362 of the Bitcoin network’s 5,436 nodes are ready for the upgrade.

In contrast, 1,204 nodes (about 22% of the network) are still running Core 0.12.1, while 964 nodes (about 18%) are running Core 0.13.0.

According to the data, Bitcoin Unlimited, another bitcoin implementation that allows operators to set their own variable block size, currently runs 5.6% of the network's nodes, or 306.

Despite support from a quarter of all nodes, SegWit has yet to activate on the network, which requires 95% of miners to adopt the software, and a grace period of 2,016 transaction blocks.

The process of definitive signaling support for SegWit is expected to begin around the 19th of this month, following the first difficulty adjustment on the 15th of this month. In the meantime, Bitcoin wallet providers and other companies have begun preparing to support the upgrade.

Whether SegWit can be activated is of concern, as some in the mining community have expressed their intention to prevent the upgrade unless the block size can be increased.