Hong Kong Bitcoin Community Strongly Rejects SegWit2x
The Hong Kong bitcoin community, which includes individuals, meetups, events, and organizations, has strongly rejected the SegWit2x hard fork expected to occur on November 16 later this year.
Already, apart from four companies, most of the major bitcoin service providers in Hong Kong such as Bitfinex, BitMEX, Bitspark, Gatecoin, OKCoin, and Tidebit have clarified bitcoin will remains as “BTC” after the fork, and SegWit2x will be considered as “B2X.”
Hong Kong Bitcoin Community: Lack of Community Support
At this phase of development, the Hong Kong bitcoin community is particularly concerned with the lack of community support for the SegWit2x hard fork. While many miners and businesses have signed the NYA agreement earlier this year, it has been evident from the Bitcoin Cash hard fork in August that if users and investors remain on the original bitcoin blockchain, hash power cannot decide the majority chain.
More to that, the Hong Kong bitcoin community disclosed that the vast majority of users, investors, and businesses in the region are firmly against SegWit2x. The statement from the Hong Kong bitcoin community read:
“In our personal conversations at meetups and events as well as through a formal poll conducted in mid-October, we found that the vast majority of the Hong Kong Bitcoin community does not support the Segwit2X hard fork. While many have voiced clear and stark opposition to Segwit2X, the lack of enthusiastic support for this fork among the community is striking.”
Significance of Hong Kong Bitcoin Community’s Opposition Against SegWit2x
The original SegWit2x agreement was established in Hong Kong last year. Similar to the NYA agreement, miners, businesses, and some developers agreed to activate SegWit and increase the bitcoin block size increase to 2MB. Ultimately, the plan did not come to fruition and fell apart due to the resistance from the bitcoin community.
It is crucial that the Hong Kong bitcoin community is in strong opposition against the SegWit2x hard fork because the basis of the NYA agreement was the Hong Kong roundtable discussion held last year. More to that, given that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in Bitfinex is also based in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong bitcoin community represents important voices within the global bitcoin industry.
The statement of the Hong Kong bitcoin community further read:
“SegWit2x does not include strong transaction replay protection, nor does it have widespread consensus across the community. Due to the combination of both a lack of consensus across the community and a lack of strong replay protection, we consider SegWit2x a reckless endeavor that will cause disruption and harm to the ecosystem. We therefore strongly oppose SegWit2x. This remains true even if the SegWit2x chain has the majority hashrate or a higher price.”
Over the past few weeks, it has been evident that the majority of the bitcoin community has been against the SegWit2x hard fork in November. If the fork is pursued, it is likely that the original bitcoin blockchain or the legacy chain will remain as the majority chain.
