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Bitcoin SegWit Transactions Now Hitting All-Time Highs

Bitcoin segwit transactions now hitting all-time highs

Bitcoin SegWit Transactions Now Hitting All-Time Highs

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As a result of the latest bitcoin Core 0.16 update, the usage levels of bitcoin SegWit have been taking off. This significant uptick in usage levels can also be attributed to a number of major exchanges and wallet providers such as Coinbase and Bittrex finally implementing this technology into their platforms. This uptick means that there could be a significant decrease in global bitcoin transaction fees and times.

Bitcoin segwit transactions now hitting all-time highs

The Advantage

Segregated Witness (SegWit) is a way of bundling transaction together into blocks, which is a much more efficient way for transactions to be processed.

The bitcoin network has experienced high levels of congestion since its popularity exploded in 2017, with issues abound as to how to scale the network. This led to higher fees and slower transaction times which were turning a lot of people away from using bitcoin.

The adoption of SegWit is aimed at drastically reducing this level of congestion.

The main issue that has been holding back the widespread adoption of SegWit across the space is that it has to be specifically enabled on wallets and exchanges. This means you need to have specific SegWit wallet addresses and these cannot be used to bridge non-SegWit and SegWit transactions.

Growing Adoption

Thankfully, the adoption levels of this technology have been growing rapidly in recent days due to the new update and the adoption by exchanges.

The use of SegWit as a percentage of total daily bitcoin transaction had been averaging around the 15% mark for some time up until last week when these events have caused a steady uptick in adoption levels.

In the past 24 hours alone, SegWit usage levels have hit peak levels of adoption at the 30% of total bitcoin transactions mark.

Monday the 26th of February saw the release of the latest bitcoin Core update labeled v0 16.0 and this provided full support to SegWit scaling technology.

There are other improvements that have been made as part of this update, but SegWit support and adoption is the major aspect that most people are focusing on. Since SegWit was initially released in August 2017, widespread adoption of this technology has been something that bitcoin users have been constantly requesting.

While a lot of the significant wallet provides and exchanges have taken their time implementing this technology, eventually growing pressure from their users as a result of slow transaction times and high fees pushed them to do something.

This adoption will also lead to further significant improvements to bitcoin in the future, such as the implementation of the Lightning Network which might allow transaction times and fees to trend close to zero.

This is an exciting time for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole as a breath of fresh air has been blown into the markets, with prices reacting positively to this news.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Published at Wed, 28 Feb 2018 14:44:04 +0000

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Litecoin Has Outperformed Bitcoin in 2017, 8,000% Increase in Price

Litecoin has outperformed bitcoin in 2017, demonstrating a staggering 8,000 percent increase in price. While it still remains as the fifth largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin Cash and Ripple, it has solidified itself as a leading digital currency.

Since January 1, the price of Litecoin has surged from $3.63 to $302, as its market cap increased from below $177 million to $16.4 billion. The market valuation of Litecoin is currently larger than that of bitcoin in the beginning of 2017.

Potential Factors Behind Rally

Over the past 12 months, the bitcoin dominance index has decreased from above 80 percent to 56 percent. Several analysts have attributed the decrease in the bitcoin dominance index to the migration of users from bitcoin to alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) such as Litecoin and Ethereum that have significantly lower transaction fees than bitcoin.

At the time of reporting, the median transaction fee of Litecoin is around $0.065, while Ethereum’s remain above $0.5. Due the high transaction fees of bitcoin, many users have started to utilize Litecoin to process cheaper and small transactions.

bitcoin Fees, a bitcoin transaction fee prediction platform developed by Earn.com (formerly 21 Inc) show that the fastest and cheapest transaction fee is 430 satoshis per byte, or 97,180 satoshis for median-size transaction. That is, a recommended fee of around $18.

When the size of the bitcoin mempool is below 50 million bytes or is relatively low, transactions can still be confirmed by miners with lower fees. But, when the size of the bitcoin mempool is larger than a hundred million bytes, without high fees, it is difficult to have transactions confirmed within 24 hours.

More users have begun to utilize Litecoin and other alternatives like Ethereum to process small transactions with cheaper fees, while relying on bitcoin as a robust store of value and safe haven asset.

Still, Litecoin creator and former Coinbase director of engineering Charlie Lee emphasized that it could take at least five years for general consumers to utilize bitcoin and litecoin in the real world.

“I think we’re still maybe five years away before people actually start using bitcoin and litecoin in real world use as a currency,” said Lee.

Where Does Litecoin Price Go in 2018

In consideration of the recent surge in the price of litecoin, Lee stated that he would be satisfied if the litecoin price stays in the $300 region by the end of 2018. That is a rather conservative prediction from Lee, as litecoin has increased by more than 83-fold year-to-date.

“I would be happy if litecoin stays at around $300 by the end of next year. It’s still very surprising how much it has grown this year. I never like to speculate on prices because I’m always wrong. If I tell you it’s going to go up and it doesn’t, you’ll be upset,” said Lee.

If more users continue to utilize litecoin for cheaper transactions and small payments, the user base and market valuation of litecoin will likely increase at a rapid rate throughout 2018.

The post Litecoin Has Outperformed Bitcoin in 2017, 8,000% Increase in Price appeared first on NEWSBTC.

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