New Bitcoin Scaling Solutions SegWit2MB, Extension Blocks Vie For Popularity

Two new scaling solutions, SegWit2MB and extension blocks, are getting praise and scorn from Bitcoin’s best-known names.

Segregated Witness implementation with 2-megabyte blocks, itself not a new concept, is gathering prominence now after Bitcoin security engineer Sergio Lerner introduced it to the Core mailing list.

While not a “perfect” solution either technically or politically, Lerner notes, it goes some way towards being a compromise in an increasingly stagnant scaling debate deadlock.

“Reasonable compromise”

ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees supported his efforts, writing in an article how the balance between “social” and “technical” in Bitcoin could remain with SegWit2MB.

“We should not let this project linger in its current state,” he said.

“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.”

Voorhees’ optimism was countered by Core developer Nick Szabo, however, who wrote on Twitter that the solution “appeases an ignorant mob.”

@dieguito @ErikVoorhees @adam3us @aantonop @johnsonlau01 @SDLerner @brucefenton It tries to appease an ignorant mob at further expense to Bitcoin’s security. — Nick Szabo (@NickSzabo4) April 3, 2017

Meanwhile, purchasing gateway Purse.io is championing a different method for solving Bitcoin’s alleged capacity issues.

CTO Christopher Jeffrey and his team are working on a method known as “extension blocks.”

“Extension Blocks enable larger blocks through an opt-in second layer for true on-chain capacity increase,” a blog post on the concept explains.