Why does SegWit adoption seem stalled at 10-20% of transactions? Why would they force users to pay high fees? What are the considerations that cryptocurrency businesses (wallets, exchanges, payment processors / merchant providers, etc.) of various sizes are making in these contentious debates?

Chart of SegWit adoption here: http://segwit.party/charts/#

This is a question from the patron-only live Q&A which took place on December 16th 2017. If you want early-access to talks and a chance to participate in the monthly live Q&As with Andreas, become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/aantonop

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Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a technologist and serial entrepreneur who has become one of the most well-known and respected figures in bitcoin.

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27 COMMENTS

  1. Then tell me this… why is Nick Szabo against Segwit2x ? For sure he is not a businessman with the self-interest you mentioned. Charlie is also against Segwit2x but lets focus on Szabo. I wanna hear you out

  2. Question:
    What will happen to bitcoin mining after the last bitcoin is minted (2140?)
    Seeing to the fact that no more bitcoins will be produced – what will incentivize the miners?
    Why will they continue to mine if they are not earning any bitcoins?
    Thanks for your time.

  3. Except that protecting the ideology of Bitcoin is acting in accordance with their own self-interest. Putting Bitcoin at "a very distant third" is like saying that these businesses focus on whom they are distributing golden eggs to first, secondly on how they distribute them, and then on whether or not the golden goose is even alive as a very distant third. I'm not saying businesses don't do this (they absolutely do!), I'm just saying that this is mindblowingly short-sighted. It's giving up billions — possibly trillions — to be made over multiple generations, just so they can make a couple extra bucks now and be forgotten tomorrow. I understand the risk associated with implementing something like SegWit; all I'm asking is for Coinbase and other Bitcoin businesses to prioritize their golden goose first. Otherwise, it's guaranteed that Bitcoin will disrupt them into oblivion, the way it has already been disrupting the rest of the financial industry.

  4. Dear Andreas, I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I popped on to Bitcoin Live Trading on youtube (where there is a great community of traders watching Rick's TA charts). And there your voice was! So loud & clear educating us all once again on Rick's channel. This is fantastic that the trader's community is sharing your no nonsense, fact stating points. Where you continue to crush our fears. Reaching this new audiences is great. Keep up the great work!

  5. I personally don't like off chain solutions. However they are best we've got in crypto land and it's better than the current financial system. We need to build a faster network before we can remove off chain solutions so we need to support this if u want blockchain to succeed. Signed, the anonymous coward. Haha.

  6. I agree with all your points, except for the part where you believe that the large players will simply adopt Segwit because the bitcoin ecosystem forces them to. If Bitcoin still had a relative monopoly (like in 2010-13), they could very well roll out something like Segwit which economically disincentivizes businesses, and still expect them to adopt it. But in a world with bitcoin cash, litecoin and other options that are widely available to the crypto ecosystem, it's much less likely that a disincentivizing measure would still be implemented by a purely profit-seeking entity. Unless core goes down another path, market forces will eventually destroy BTC.

  7. I'm perfectly fine with coinbase taking their time but it wasn't but last week that they were talking about not even worrying about it… that was the unprofessional part that disappointed everyone for someone who's such a big player in this space

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