Approximately on Thursday, August 24th, Segregated Witness (SegWit) will activate on the Bitcoin network. This is a highly anticipated moment for Bitcoin, with the potential of driving it forward towards new development. But first, let’s recap all that SegWit will bring to TREZOR users, and explore how it will affect you practically.

What is Segregated Witness bringing to the table?

Signed transaction value in input — No need for lengthy input verifications via previous transactions and their hashes

Linearly increasing validation times — Gone is the quadratically increasing waiting time for transaction signing

Script versioning — Future new features will be easier to implement and support in wallets like TREZOR

Segregated signatures — Slimming down the transaction size, thereby effectively increasing the number of transactions that will fit into a block, and also making the transaction cheaper

Malleability fix — Increases security for advanced bitcoin services, enabling second layer applications like the Lightning Network or smart contracts

I want SegWit, when are you activating it in TREZOR Wallet?

The current estimate for SegWit activation is August 24th, 12:30 UTC, however this may change. For a more precise time, check the updates at segwit.party.

We will enable SegWit in TREZOR Beta Wallet within a few days after it is activated on the Bitcoin network. It will stay in the Beta Wallet for some time, to test its stability.

Update — August 31st: SegWit for Bitcoin was activated in TREZOR Wallet.

How will Segregated Witness work in TREZOR Wallet?

After SegWit activates, you will be greeted by two sets of different accounts in your Bitcoin wallet. Your new SegWit accounts, simply labeled as Account #, will be empty, as they are completely new. Do not worry though, all your funds will be available in your Legacy Accounts.

If you wish to use new SegWit features, you will need to move your funds to the new SegWit accounts. You will be able to do so by sending a normal bitcoin transaction to your own address. SegWit (P2SH) addresses begin with a “3”, like multisig addresses.

If you do not want to use SegWit features, there is no need to do anything. We will continue to support Legacy Accounts indefinitely.

Explore more:

Do I need to update firmware for Segregated Witness?

If you have installed the latest firmware update, 1.5.2, then no, your TREZOR already supports SegWit on Bitcoin.