SegWit2x Hard Fork Launches Today

We are about 5 hours away from block No. 501451, when the new version of the dreaded SegWit2x hard fork will launch.

It will join Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond and Super Bitcoin as the 5th Bitcoin fork of 2017.

This new version has very little, if anything, to do with the original SegWit2x hard fork, which failed to launch in November, after the New York agreement fell apart at the last minute.

Here are the main claims to fame of this latest Bitcoin fork:

• Increased block sizes of 4MB (compared to 1MB for BTC)
• A higher production rate of 2.5 minutes (compared to 10 minutes for BTC)
• Recalculation of complexity (difficulty) after each block
• Protection against repeated transactions (i.e. replay protection)
• Use of the X11 encryption algorithm

The roadmap for the next 12 months for B2X also includes:

• Offline code support
• Lightning network support for instant transactions
• ZkSNARK support
• Ethereum Smart Contract Support
• Anonymous transactions

The idea behind these changes is to allow for faster and cheaper transactions by allowing more transactions to occur in each block, and for blocks to have faster production rates.

That is all very welcome, but as we can see, this is nothing like the original SegWit2x, which only increased the size of the block to 2MB, so the name is very misleading.

The project is headed by Jaap Terlouw and a small team of developers. For more information, you can visit their website at b2x-segwit.io.

The big question now is how can you make sure you can claim your fair share of the new fork. There is a lot of mixed information available on the web as to which exchange will support the fork. Possible ones include:

1. https://hitbtc.com/

2. https://yobit.net/en/

3. https://exrates.me/

4. https://zumminer.com/

5. https://localtrade.pro/

6. https://needlecoin.org/

7. https://www.wmtransfer.com/

8. https://freewallet.org/

Binance and KuCoin are also rumored to support it, but due to the confusion with the name, it’s hard to know for sure.

The only sure way of getting the forked coins is to hold your bitcoin in your own hardware or software wallet, such as the Ledger Nano S or Exodus at the time of the blockchain snapshot, which is coming up very shortly now.

It’s tempting to dismiss this coin as just another useless fork, but look at where bitcoin cash is right now and ask yourself if you can afford to take the chance.