{"id":36130,"date":"2017-07-22T05:20:14","date_gmt":"2017-07-22T05:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=36130"},"modified":"2017-07-22T05:20:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-22T05:20:14","slug":"bitcoin-averts-split-as-miners-back-new-software-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/lifestyle\/bitcoin-averts-split-as-miners-back-new-software-upgrade.html","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin averts split as miners back new software upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Bitcoin averts split as miners back new software upgrade<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Digital currency bitcoin on Friday averted a split into two currencies after its network supported an upgrade to its software that would enhance its ability to process an increasing number of transactions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Bitcoin&#8217;s miners have signaled their support for the so-called Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 91, avoiding a split of bitcoin into two blockchains. The miners represent a network of computer operators who secure the blockchain or a public ledger of all bitcoin transactions<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">BIP 91 is the first step toward a larger effort to upgrade bitcoin through a software called SegWit2x. On Friday, the support for BIP 91 reached nearly 100 percent, exceeding the required threshold of 80 percent, according to analysts and market participants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Some investors have warmed to bitcoin, wooed by its explosive performance and potential to compete with gold and government-issued money as a means to store value. Demand for bitcoin has grown in eight years to a market capitalization of more than $40 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">But fears about the bitcoin split dampened demand for bitcoin in recent weeks. After hitting record high near $3,000, bitcoin dropped as low $1,830 BTC=BTSP on the Bitstamp platform. On Friday, it traded at $2,647.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The software upgrade attempts to address the bitcoin network&#8217;s limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. Bitcoin&#8217;s network has not kept pace with its growth and is unable to process all the transactions fast enough.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">&#8220;BIP 91 unleashes the next wave of innovation because it has been a little bit stagnant of late for bitcoin,&#8221; said Rob Viglione, co-founder of ZenCash, a digital coin focused on privacy and security.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Before BIP 91&#8217;s endorsement, some bitcoin investors feared it could split into two independent currencies because core developers of the network and the miners each wanted different ways to increase bitcoin&#8217;s scale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">A compromise between the two groups has been reached through SegWit2x.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">&#8220;Bitcoin now has a clear run to add features that allow for faster transactions with lower costs,&#8221; said Charles Hayter, chief executive officer of digital currency analytics firm Cryptocompare.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The upgrade to bitcoin&#8217;s network will not occur until autumn, said Viglione, because several things need to happen before the new software is activated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Market participants have complained about the delay in transactions. Analysts say a single bitcoin transaction costs on average 83 U.S. cents to execute, which means micropayments are not feasible on the network.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The network is also limited to roughly seven transactions per second. In comparison, Visa on average handles 2,000 transactions per second.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 8pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Source:-http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-bitcoin-split-idUSKBN1A62T4<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/lifestyle\/bitcoin-averts-split-as-miners-back-new-software-upgrade.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bitcoin averts split as miners back new software upgrade Digital currency bitcoin on Friday averted a split into two currencies after its network supported an upgrade to its software that would enhance its ability to process an increasing number of transactions. Bitcoin&#8217;s miners have signaled their support for the so-called [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}