Fixation of BIP 91 in the bitcoin network took place, but the activation of the Segregated witness is still in question

The fixation of the proposal to improve Bitcoin BIP 91 officially took place on the night of Friday, July 21, when more than 90% of the network hash signaled in support of this decision. Bitcoin Magazine writes about this.

The next step is to activate Segregated Witness (SegWit), in addition, in theory, there is no need to activate BIP 148 (UASF), and the key date on August 1 also loses its relevance.
However, as noted by observers, the activation of SegWit still can not be considered guaranteed.

Favorable scenario

Provided that most of the miners support BIP 91, after a certain time their capacity should begin to control the longest valid chain that all nodes will accept. And since this chain consists of blocks that signal solely support for SegWit, accordingly, the SegWit protocol itself will be activated.

In this case, the fixation of the user-activated softfork (BIP 141) should take place in mid-August, and two weeks after the so-called grace period, SegWit activation should take place.

Unfavorable scenario

Despite the fact that more than 80% of the miners in the last few days voted for the activation of BIP 91, the guarantee that the offer will be activated is still not there. As it was above, starting from the new period to go to bit 1, but at the moment the number of the miners signaling the support of BIP 91 on the first bit is even less than the threshold time - less than 50%.

And since activation of BIP 91 is possible only due to the hash of miners, this means that they can theoretically continue to find blocks with bit 4. In fact, this will mean quitting BIP 91 and refusing to support SegWit. Despite the fact that this is associated with certain reputational losses, the miners, if they are in the majority, continue to control the longest valid chain.

Moreover, the remaining miners, who continue to vote for BIP 91 through bit 1, may subsequently separate into a separate chain. They themselves will consider it to be valid, but the rest of the network will completely ignore them.

Thus, successfully fixing BIP 91 through the fourth signal bit (bit 4), most of the miners, including the pools that previously rejected the SegWit implementation, essentially made nothing more than a statement of intent. As far as these statements meet their actual intentions, the near future will show.