The big story of yesterday is the alleged cancellation of SegWit2x. However, the fork wills till go ahead as planned. Whether or not there is enough support, remains to be determined. Things can easily head in either direction over the next few weeks. Peter Todd isn’t too happy about this decision or its retraction. More specifically, a lot of time has been spent on infrastructure upgrades to accommodate this fork. It seems most of the work has been in vain.
It has to be said, Bitcoin companies have kept an open mind toward SegWit2x at all times. Some even openly supported it by working on infrastructure upgrades. The big question is whether or not all of this was in vain or not. There is still some confusion over this upcoming hard fork. According to the latest information, it will launch next week. However, its viability is in question right now, for obvious reasons. This would render all of the hard work moot.
Peter Todd on the SegWit2x Cancellation
Peter Todd isn’t too happy about the decision either way. More specifically, the time and effort wasted could have been spent otherwise. He claims there are a few individuals who can “foot the bill” for this mess. It is unclear if anyone holds them responsible for these developments, though. Everyone knows SegWit2x is controversial at best. Moreover, some people pulling the strings have ulterior motives in Bitcoin from day one.
The 2X cancellation email was signed by Mike Belshe, Wences Casares, Jihan Wu, Jeff Garzik, Peter Smith, and Erik Voorhees, in case you were wondering who to send the bill for the millions of dollars worth of engineering time wasted on this mess.
— Peter Todd/mempoolfullrbf=1 (@peterktodd) November 8, 2017
No companies were forced to effectively introduce support for this fork. Granted, companies can’t afford to miss out either. For all we know, SegWit2x dethrones Bitcoin and becomes the main chain. That seems more unlikely now than ever before, though. All of the companies knew what they were getting involved in. Most of them made the wrong call in this regard and wasted millions. Focusing on other efforts may have been the better decision, but hindsight is 20/20.
The comment by Peter Todd may irk some people, though. There are plenty of people who still believe Bitcoin isn’t suited to scale in its current form. It is certainly possible, to say the least. However, forking the code and doing one’s own thing may not be the best course of action either. Bringing the community back together is always the better option. Whether or not the comment by Peter Todd will fall on deaf ears, remains to be seen. There is still a lot of debate regarding this fork as we speak. Moreover, the Bitcoin price is tanking due to these shenanigans.
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