A total of 56 companies that represent 83.28% of bitcoin’s hashing power have reached a consensus to deploy the Segwit2Mb protocol upgrade for bitcoin.

An announcement by the Digital Currency Group today reads:

“We agree to immediately support the following parallel upgrades to the bitcoin protocol, which will be deployed simultaneously and based on the original Segwit2Mb proposal:

Activate Segregated Witness at an 80% threshold, signaling at bit 4

Activate a 2 MB hard fork within six months

We are also committed to the research and development of technical mechanisms to improve signaling in the bitcoin community, as well as to put in place communication tools, in order to more closely coordinate with ecosystem participants in the design, integration, and deployment of safe solutions that increase bitcoin capacity.”

A number of other companies have also committed to provide ‘technical and engineering support’ to test and assist the protocol upgrade. They include the likes of bitcoin and blockchain companies such as BitPay, Bitmain, Bloq, Circle and Xapo.

An excerpt from the announcement added:

“The group of signed companies represents a critical mass of the bitcoin ecosystem. As of May 23, this group represents:

56 companies located in 21 countries

83.28% of hashing power

5.1 billion USD monthly on chain transaction volume

20.5 million bitcoin wallets”

CCN.com will report further on the scaling agreement in the coming hours.