Litecoin’s problematic course towards Segregated Witness (SegWit) activation has ended in an unusual display of unity.
Litecoin Roundtable: We ‘Unanimously Agree’ On SegWit Activation
Following a meeting of Chinese cryptocurrency players including exchanges and miners, a consensus was reached on activating SegWit despite some participants having previously been against the idea.
The so-called Litecoin Global Roundtable included Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, exchanges Huobi and Okcoin and formerly anti-SegWit mining pool Bitmain.
Summarized minutes released from the meeting confirm that subject to community support, participants “unanimously agree” to “implement Segregated Witness softfork on Litecoin.”
“When the usage of Litecoin block capacity is over 50%, we will start to prepare for a solution to increase the 1MB block size limit through a hardfork or softfork,” a proviso adds.
Bitmain Gets Behind Litecoin SegWit
The big surprise from Friday’s events was the support of Bitmain, whose CEO Jihan Wu had previously stated his opposition to SegWit on numerous occasions, both for Bitcoin and Litecoin.
A founder has abondoned his creation for years. When he came back, he came along with Shaolinfry, and decided to push SegWit. Legit.
— Jihan Wu (@JihanWu) April 18, 2017
Now, it appears, both Wu and Bitmain have U-turned on the idea.
The Roundtable added:
We want to emphasize that this roundtable meeting represents only the consensus of participating members, and cannot make a decision on behalf of the Litecoin community.
U-Turns Abound
Litecoin’s approaching SegWit activation threshold had caused a significant uptick in its price. Having traded at just under $4 per coin for a considerable period, increasing miner support saw it shoot past $10 and stay at these levels.
As interest increased, however, rumors began spreading of manipulation by Bitmain, which was accused by pro-SegWit Shaolinfry of artificially hindering Litecoin’s activation.
I heard @JihanWu is adding up to 900G @BITMAINtech L3 scrypt miners to stop @litecoin segwit https://t.co/04m7jlMSky 😔I hope this isn't true
— shaolinfry (@shaolinfry) April 9, 2017
Lee himself appealed to the community to force a user-activated soft fork (UASF) to counter such activities. In a further sign of how the situation has changed, the Roundtable members added that they were now against as UASF with a specific activation schedule, stating:
We do not advocate a flag-day ‘UASF’ that does not go through [sic] any users or community voting process. This type of forced upgrade without community consensus put Litecoin in a risk of split
What do you think about the latest events for Litecoin? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of AdobeStock
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