Steemit Crypto Academy week 3 | Homework task for @gbenga | SegWit or Legacy Bitcoin Network.
This is my submission for homework task by @gbenga which is about
Segwit Bitcoin Network or Legacy Bitcoin Network, which do you prefer and why?
Before jumping on to the sagvit and legacy Bitcoin Network, a brief introduction of Bitcoin and its network will ease our understanding of the subject. So let me begin.
Bitcoin unlike it's name, is not any physical currency which you can touch, hold in your wallets or draw from ATMs or banks. It is a digital asset popularly called blockchain based cryptocurrncy characterised by it's decentralised and non repudiable nature, transparency and annonymity, Bitcoin released by mysterious satoshi nakamoto unleashed the magic of cryptocurrncy to the world with its SHA 256 (secure hash algorithm) encryption and concepts of Proof of work.
What is legacy Bitcoin ( Blockchain ) Network?
It is a public ledger to record Bitcoin transections. As the name implies, it is a chain of blocks . A block is a record of accepted transections maintained via cryptographic functions on powerful computers and GPUs known as nodes.
Each block is a combination of hash of previous block extending upto the initial block from where transections has initiated and root of current transection with time and nonce. Each node of the blockchain after checking and validating the transection, store a copy of it on ledger and than transmit the information to other nodes for validation and independent storage. In this way, there are multiple checks and balances of the transections.
Challenges of Bitcoin legacy Network.
The majority of space (65%) in each transaction consists of signature of witness, as signature is mandatory to verify the transaction before being recorded on nodes in a blockchain. As more and more transactions are being performed, more and more blocks are added to the network (1 block every 10 min) . Each block is constrained to a maximum size of one MB, so only few transections can be added to a block. Imagine the number of transactions (blocks) created since 2009,that are there on the network. A sort of congestion piles up, resulting in slow processing and verification of transactions. It wws going to be more and more problematic as time would pass by, therefore creating utmost need to bring some revolutionary changes to tackle these problems that led to the development of segwit network.
Segwit Bitcoin Network.
When we carefully look at the term, we can judge that, Segwit is basically an amalgam of two terms or words. Seg and Wit joined.Seg refers to segregation or Separation and wit to witness (which means signature here). So segregation of witness means separation of transaction signature.
Segwit is therefore aimed at removing signature from transactions, so as to increase effective block size from one MB to four MBs, thereby helping more transactions to be added to the same block and hence aid blockchain to function quickly and more smoothly. It has also been seen that at times reciever or some third party attempted to modify sender's transaction ID to recieve some extra coins and segwit has also solved that problem of signature malleablity.
Segwit Bitcoin Network or Legacy Bitcoin Network, which do you prefer and why?
I would prefer segwit Bitcoin Network for following reasons:
Segwit makes the bitcoin network lighter and transactions faster.
Segwit eliminated the problem of transaction malleablity.
Because of segwit transaction fee is lower than legacy network. It is because of faster transactions due to lighter network.
Segwit helps to tackle the problem of scalability by aiding development of scalability projects like lighter network.
Conclusion.
SegWit was developed in 2015 by Pieter Wuille and coworkers. In 2017 , it was implemented as a soft fork on the Bitcoin network.
Segwit marks the biggest protocol upgradation of Bitcoin. It was a great and progressive step to solve some legacy network problems like Bitcoin scalability , transaction speed and fee etc. Despite all these pros, it is yet to recieve widespread recognition. As of now, lesser than two third of Bitcoin addresses use Segwit.
Twitter link
https://twitter.com/Qamran7007/status/1364380392539648000?s=20
