With Bitcoin soaring to new all-time highs, one would almost forget there is still a scaling debate going on. Bitcoin Unlimited has gained some more network support over the past few weeks. As of right now, Over 40% of all blocks mined on the network signal BU. The bigger question is how this will affect the Bitcoin network as a whole.
The road has been rocky for Bitcoin Unlimited these past few months, that much is certain. Even though the project’s source code has been hit with multiple flaws and bugs, support has continued to grow. This results in 403 out of the last 1,000 Bitcoin network blocks mined signaling for BU support. That is quite a significant development, as it seems Unlimited is getting closer to activating on the network every single day.
Bitcoin Unlimited Support Continues To Grow
Over on the /r/BTC subreddit, people are getting very excited regarding this development. That is not surprising by any means, although claiming BU support is approaching 50% is overstating things quite a bit. There is still a large gap between 40% and 50%, and it remains to be seen if this gap can be bridged anytime soon. Then again, support for SegWit is not growing anytime soon, thus it is not unlikely things will pick up speed in the coming weeks and months.
The big question is how Bitcoin Unlimited support will reach that 50% threshold. The most logical solution revolves around a major Bitcoin mining pool switching allegiances, although that seems highly unlikely at this point. One thing working in favor of Bitcoin Unlimited is how support for 8MB blocks is increasing as well, with 5.3% network support at the time of writing. An intriguing development well worth keeping an eye on.
Assuming Bitcoin Unlimited will successfully reach 50% – or preferably 51% – network support, things will get very interesting for Bitcoin. It is still possible Unlimited will hard fork Bitcoin and move on as a separate chain. Those plans are not set in stone by any means, though, and things may change in the future. While this debacle has little effect on the Bitcoin price right now, things will get very interesting once BU hits the magical 50% mark.
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