Segwit2x Should Be Canceled

BitPay’s participaction in the New York Argeement was intended to help facilitate a path forward between feuding elements of the Bitcoin community and keep the remaining community together for at least a little while longer. Since it is apparent that this original goal cannot be achieved, we feel the best course of action is for Bitcoin miners to cancel it.

If miners proceed as they are signaling, with block 494,784 they will rip the Bitcoin blockchain apart. No one wins. Many services, including BitPay, are forced to suspend our Bitcoin based operations. The damage could extend far beyond Bitcoin. The entire blockchain industry could suffer as a result.

Miners should have a sense of responsibility to serve their users as best they can. This includes making hard decisions about consensus rule changes. It also includes maintaining a reliable service. With a deep division among miners on this issue, at block 494,784, Bitcoin will be unusable.

At BitPay, we must follow the chain with the most accumulated difficulty and we are committed to doing so. But we also ask that miners immediately stop signaling for segwit2x and send a clear signal to all users that the Bitcoin blockchain will remain operational.

UPDATE: Several companies including Bitmain (a large miner) have suspended Segwit2x efforts: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x/2017-November/000685.html