In the past, some have called Litecoin the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.” Now many Bitcoin proponents are eagerly watching Litecoin as miners have just begun signaling for Segregated Witness (Segwit). Bitcoin community members hope Litecoin’s Segwit implementation may show a silver lining beneath the ongoing scaling debate.
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Litecoin Miners Begin to Signal Segwit Support
On February 3, the Litecoin mining community began to signal for Segwit integration. The upgrade claims to bring a few enhancements, fix malleability, and may even optimize block size capacity. This, in turn, could lead to more transactions processed per block and speed up the digital currency’s transaction queue. Furthermore, integrating Segwit will allow for the Lightning Network to be applied to the Litecoin protocol as well.
Currently, people can watch the altcoin’s miners signal for Segwit here to see if and when it reaches a threshold of 75 percent of total consensus. At the time of writing, 11.45 percent of the Litecoin network’s miners support the change. While visiting the Litecoin community’s subreddit, a good majority of people seem to be excited and support the Segwit integration. Moreover, Litecoin developers and the cryptocurrency’s creator Charlie Lee have also endorsed the soft fork.
Charlie Lee Hopes to Break the Block Size Debate Deadlock
“So you may wonder why I’m pushing for Segwit,” explains Charlie Lee in January. Litecoin does not have a block size problem. — But with Segwit and Bitcoin’s current block scaling deadlock, I see a potential for Litecoin to help Bitcoin break through this deadlock. Litecoin can take a lead and be a positive force in the cryptocurrency space. We have been drafting behind the Bitcoin race car for many years. It’s about time to take a turn out front.”
Litecoin has been considered by many to be the strongest blockchain, second only to Bitcoin’s hashrate and security. The protocol which is nearly identical to Bitcoin was released into the wild via Github by Charlie Lee in October 2011. Since then, the network has gained a significantly sized hashrate which is 2,973 GH/s at press time. Lee believes the experiment of using Litecoin’s significantly sized network is an excellent testbed.
This is my vision for how Litecoin and Bitcoin will work together to solve the world’s transaction needs in the future. And it is why the Silver to Bitcoin’s Gold analogy always resonated with me. Do you want to come along for the ride?
Can Observing the Test Be the Silver Lining?
It’s safe to say that a good portion of the cryptocurrency community will be observing this test with Segwit and Litecoin. However, it may be a while before the Litecoin network of miners reaches 75 percent approval but if it does, Segwit will become part of the protocol. The threshold of 75 percent is lower than Bitcoin’s current 95 percent which is required for Bitcoin Segwit integration.
First segwit-signaling block mined by Coinotron! https://t.co/yRelxuN109 https://t.co/JzfitvT49X
— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) February 3, 2017
Currently, Segwit support is hovering around the 23 percent range within the Bitcoin network. Meanwhile, smaller mining factions like BTCTop, GBminers, Viabtc, and more have been gaining more hashrate and supporting the alternative client Bitcoin Unlimited. While waiting for consensus, many Bitcoin users have been annoyed by the recent transaction backlog. On February 3, 896,000 BTC worth of transactions were stuck in the mempool and Bitcoin’s transaction queue was slammed for over 24 hours. Watching Litecoin deploy Segwit may bring hope for some but may not be fast enough in the eyes of others.
What do you think about Litecoin’s move to implement Segwit? Do you think it will activate on the Litecoin network? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter, and Litecoinblockhalf.com.
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