Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, a former executive at Coinbase, and a long-time supporter of Bitcoin, has expressed his concerns over SegWit2x and the pursuit of the solution by a group of companies that are trying to alter the Bitcoin protocol without user consensus.
Lee stated:
“Miners and business cannot change Bitcoin without user consensus. So today, to show my disapproval, I'm adding [NO2X] to my name.”
SegWit2x and lack of support from community
Initially, SegWit2x was proposed by Barry Silbert-led Digital Currency Group as a follow up solution to the Hong Kong agreement; to increase the Bitcoin block size by 2MB and in return, activate the Bitcoin Core development team’s scaling and transaction malleability solution Segregated Witness (SegWit2x).
But, the majority of the Bitcoin community opposed the activation of SegWit2x, due to the lack of support from Bitcoin Core developers and users. Acknowledging the decline in the probability of the Bitcoin community agreeing to the SegWit2x proposal, the companies behind the movement proposed a hard fork execution in November, to create a separate Bitcoin-based Blockchain network, like Bitcoin Cash.
One major issue with SegWit2x is the timing of the proposal. It is rather odd that a centralized group of businesses are trying to alter the Bitcoin protocol without the agreement of Bitcoin Core developers, the open-source development community, the industry, and users. More to that, SegWit is still at its early stage in adoption and it already has demonstrated significant impact on the Bitcoin network in terms of scalability. Although only five percent of transactions are SegWit-enabled as of now, the average block size has decreased from 1MB to 0.86 and the size of the Bitcoin mempool has decreased from 150 mln bytes to less than 10 mln bytes.
The substantial decline in the size of the Bitcoin mempool is especially important to consider, because the mempool is the holding area for unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions. For the past month, the size of the Bitcoin mempool has remained below 15 mln bytes, less than 10 percent of where it was a month ago.
Let SegWit play out, wait until community seeks for SegWit2x
Not all Bitcoin Core developers and experts in the Bitcoin sector are opposed to Bitcoin block size increase. In 2015, Bitcoin pioneer and Blockstream CEO Adam Back expressed his support towards increasing the Bitcoin block size.
But, it is vital to increase the Bitcoin block size when necessary. SegWit has already scaled the Bitcoin network at a similar rate, as a 2MB block size increase and still at five percent capacity. If it reaches 50 percent and 100 percent in the upcoming months, the Bitcoin Blockchain will scale even further.
Therefore, it is crucial to let SegWit play out, have Bitcoin companies adopt the solution, and when it is absolutely necessary, pursue the idea of increasing the Bitcoin block size. It is not logical to implement a major update on the Bitcoin protocol when SegWit, which was integrated just last month, is still in progress in terms of adoption and integration by wallets and exchanges.