bitcoin stands out from customary currencies thanks to its transparent supply mechanism. The total supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million units, a limit set by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. This hard cap ensures scarcity and serves as a store of value, fostering trust and accountability among users.
One of the unique features of bitcoin’s supply is the concept of halving. Every four yearsor more precisely after 210,000 blocks, the reward for mining a new block is halved. This process controls the rate at which new coins are issued, gradually reducing the production of new bitcoins until the 21 million cap is reached. The first halving took place in 2012and the most recent one in 2020, with more expected every four years.
This mechanism doesn’t just affect the issuance of new coins; it also influences market psychology. The idea of a limited supply can attract speculative investment, as investors believe that scarcity will drive up value over time. Once the 21 million cap is hit, miners will still process transactions but will earn their revenue primarily through transaction fees. This shift is already becoming apparent as block reward halvings reduce the economic incentive for mining new coins,highlighting the sustainability of bitcoin’s long-term vision.
bitcoin’s transparency allows anyone to audit its total supply, ensuring that the system remains open and accountable.
Two cases for Segregated Witness (SegWit) activation via different channels are moving closer to reality this week for bitcoin. Meanwhile, Litecoin is getting closer to its own SW activation as its price is climbing to new highs.
Litecoin Hits 3-Year High
Despite not suffering the same teething problems as bitcoin, SegWit appears to have at Litecoin, with support moving over 58%. At 75%, SegWit will trigger, as it already has done for fellow altcoin asset .
Litecoin creator Charlie Lee has been a vocal proponent of SegWit, but not as a solution to block scaling, especially since Litecoin does not have any capacity issues.
“The main fix is transaction malleability, which would allow (LN) to be built on top of Litecoin,” he back in January.
Thanks for supporting Litecoin and signaling SegWit! It's clear that the market is in favor of it.
It appears traders have welcomed the news with Lee proclaiming the market gains as sign of support for SegWit activation. Litecoin price broke $9 USD on Monday, a value it hasn’t seen in three years.
SegWit2MB Could See Reality in December
Meanwhile, in bitcoin-land, implementation via 2-megabyte blocks, known as SegWit2MB, received support from ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees and subsequently from Andreas Antonopoulos.
At the same time, ex-BTCC COO Samson Mow has announced the winner of his coding competition to produce a “safe” method of introducing SegWit via a user-activated soft fork (UASF).
In a post on published Sunday, Voorhees announced that SegWit2MB had been formally proposed to bitcoin Core mailing list recipients.
Its proponents, bitcoin security consultant Sergio Lerner and RootStock, foresee a successfully accepted proposal coming into force December 14, 2017 – if it gains community support.
Balancing ‘Social’ and ‘Technical’
Lerner was first to say that it was neither a solution, nor a one-size-fits-all patch. Rather he referred to SegWit2MB as a “least common denominator.”
He explained:
Segwit2Mb is the project to merge into bitcoin a minimal patch that aims to untangle the current conflict between different political positions regarding segwit activation vs. an increase of the on-chain blockchain space through a standard block size increase.
Lerner added that the concept was hardly a new idea, and Voorhees commented that the “cost of conflict” meant that a “social” as well as a technical solution was badly needed.
“bitcoin is a technical project, absolutely. Yet it is a social project as well […] This current impasse is similarly both technical and social, and it continues at great cost,” he wrote.
Weighing up the proposal, Voorhees similarly touched on its use as a bridge between technical and social requirements of the community.
“SegWit2MB is the first reasonable compromise, considering the impasse’s technical and social aspects, actually put forth in code, based on well-known and studied fundamental components from bitcoin’s best engineers,” he concluded.
Andreas Antonopoulos agreed with Voorhees’ perspective on Twitter, describing SegWit2MB as a “political, not technical solution.”
“Segwit2MB is far from ideal but better than more scaling war,” he added.
Agreeing with Eric. Segwit2MB is far from ideal but better than more scaling war. A political, not tech solution.
Meanwhile, Mow announced on Twitter he was awarding 5.95 BTC to a coder named shaolinfry for his creation of Mow’s required “safe” method of activating SegWit via UASF.
Shaolinfry receipt of the money on Twitter, which was followed by another user sending 1 BTC as thanks for developing the potential activation solution.
As it stands now, SegWit activation is still well below the 95% threshold it needs to activate, which is why the UASF is becoming an increasingly popular idea in an effort to bypass the deadlock with miners.
Across the divide, Chain engineer Oleg Andreev added to that bitcoin’s capacity problems were something of a myth and that no block size increase was needed.
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