Good news everyone, Bitcoin Core has just released version 0.16.0 of the Bitcoin protocol implementation. It features a lot of goodies and a well awaited huge feature: SegWit implementation.

SegWit is a soft fork that is increasing block size limits by separating signature data from transactional data in bitcoin transactions. It is also a transaction malleability fix that is needed for the proper implementation of the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a scaling solution that will enable almost zero fee and instant micro transactions on the second layer.

Bitcoin Core had a slow and steady (secure) way of doing things previously, even though the majority of miners agreed to implement SegWit as a soft fork, they didn’t rush to implement it into the most used wallet software. After exchanges like Bitstamp, Bitfinex and Coinbase and popular wallet providers like BitGo, Electrum, Ledger, Trezor and Samourai Wallet went forward and implemented it we finally get to play around with low fees and new addresses on our full nodes.

Additional (partial) list of features taken from the changelog:

Segwit – Bitcoin Core 0.16.0 introduces full support for segwit in the wallet and user interfaces. A new `-addresstype` argument has been added, which supports `legacy`, `p2sh-segwit` (default), and `bech32` addresses. It controls what kind of addresses are produced by `getnewaddress`, `getaccountaddress`, and `createmultisigaddress`. A `-changetype` argument has also been added, with the same options, and by default equal to `-addresstype`, to control which kind of change is used.

BIP173 – (Bech32) Address support (“bc1…” addresses)

HD-wallets by default

Replace-By-Fee by default in GUI

Wallets directory configuration (`-walletdir`)

You can find a long list of segwit supporting services on the Bitcoin Core website. We are excited to see how this update affects the segwit adoption rate.