Gemini Adds Full SegWit Support In Order To Help Bitcoin Scalability

One of the largest crypto exchanges to date, Gemini, is claiming to be the first large cryptocurrency exchange platform to offer full segregated witness (SegWit) integration in their wallet.

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Gemini’s Head of Communications explained the importance of such a move and how it would give a better foundation for future Bitcoin development.

“To effectively transform the way Bitcoin is stored and transferred, we had to deploy a full SegWit integration into our platform. By doing such a change, we are segregating addresses from transactions, thus – enhancing security. Transaction batching is another great improvement. With full SegWit and transaction batching, Gemini is striving to achieve better performance and lower transaction fees.”

The SegWit protocol launched in late 2017, and the main difference between the old “all-in-one” block data is that transaction blocks are smaller and digital signature data is stored separately from the transactions themselves. SegWit reduces the block “weight” by 30-40%.

For now, the SegWit protocol is only available for Bitcoin, with addresses starting with BC1. The protocol is hard to be implemented at once – this is the main reason few exchanges and wallet services providers have enabled SegWit for their clients.

The team at Gemini believes SegWit is a “breath of fresh air” for the crypto community and a step further towards a more extensive cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption.

“We think SegWit’s implementation will lower transaction fees, improve the speed of the network, and give a firm foundation for newer technology to emerge – like the Lightning network, which will enhance the crypto experience for all users. Many of us believe Lightning is the future of payments in the Bitcoin ecosystem.”, said Brian Kim Johnson, a software engineer at Gemini.

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