Coinbase and Bitfinex, two of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges are adopting a software called SegWit to make Bitcoin (Bitcoin) transactions faster and cheaper, CNBC reported.
"We are delighted that through this implementation we can provide our customers with Bitcoin withdrawal fees that are up to 20 percent lower, as well as faster-than-ever transaction speeds," Bitfinex Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino said in a statement.
We are proud to announce support for SegWit.https://t.co/FTCmRrRo2K pic.twitter.com/Kk2cA71wNN
— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) February 20, 2018
San Francisco-based exchange Coinbase said the first phase of SegWit implementation will kick off this week, and should be fully available by the middle of next week.
Our engineering team has finished testing of SegWit for Bitcoin on Coinbase.
— Coinbase (@coinbase) February 20, 2018
We will be starting a phased launch to customers over the next few days and are targeting a 100% launch to all customers by mid next week.
The SegWit protocol is not to be confused with last November’s Segwit2x Bitcoin fork that did not happen.
The SegWit protocol is an upgrade of the blockchain network that increases the size of the blocks from 1MB to 1.8MB. This makes the transactions faster, cheaper and more secure.
The SegWit upgrade was activated in August of 2017, but so far only about 12% of the Bitcoin blockchain transactions are using it.