Bitcoin’s global development community is scheduled to meet this week for the latest edition of a conference series focused on the network’s more pressing problems, like scaling to accommodate more transactions. Launched in 2015 in response to mounting demand for scaling to support a larger userbase, this weekend’s Scaling Bitcoin is slated to see a number of talks focused on issues like scalability, as well as one on Segregated Witness (SegWit), a much-lauded and debated scaling compromise announced in December . While no big updates are expected at the conference, bitcoin developers say the release of activation code that would see SegWit disseminated for download and testing is expected soon, representing another step in a long line that has preceded its expected launch. Before officially making the change, however, developers are still testing for potential bugs. "We’re making a lot of changes to the network right now," Bitcoin Core contributor Eric Lombrozo said, arguing that they need to tread carefully to ensure that the update is compatible with other recent changes (as seen in the latest software release ). "One of the remaining open issues is making SegWit work with compact blocks," Bitcoin Core contributor Bryan Bishop added. Integrated in August, compact blocks allow nodes to send data more quickly and efficiently when they "talk" to one another. Despite the wait, there’s reason for excitement. The code, when launched, is expected to nearly double the number of transactions bitcoin can process and perhaps bring some resolution to what has been a long and contentious debate over bitcoin scaling. Not only does it immediately grow the amount of transactions that the network can process, but it also lays the groundwork for future projects that could potentially expand capacity further. SegWit provides a fix to the "transaction malleability" problem, which is […]
