F2 Pool May Pull Hashrate Support Away From Segwit2x

Lately, there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the Segwit2x proposal’s upcoming November hard fork. According to reports, the mining organization F2 Pool doesn’t support the 2MB fork, and the pool has also stated it hasn’t been running the BTC1 code.

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F2 Pool Doesn’t Seem to Favor the Segwit2x Hard Fork

From the looks of it, the Segwit2x proposal is looking grimmer every single day. Now the operator of the mining pool F2 Pool, Wang Chun, has told the publication, Coindesk, over email correspondence his pool does not support the upcoming 2MB block size increase. Wang Chun further tells the news outlet that the pool has not been running the BTC1 (Segwit2x) code base.

Currently, the news has spread like wildfire across social media and forums among both sides of the debate. Many bitcoin Core software supporters are celebrating F2 Pool’s decision change and question whether the pool even supported the protocol change at all.

All Eyes on F2Pool and Wang Chun’s Cryptic Tweets

As news.Bitcoin.com reported in the past, bitcoin proponents from both sides of the debate are often focused on the moves F2 Pool makes. This is due to some of the remarks and statements Chun makes on his Twitter feed. For instance, Chun seemed to favor the Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) client this past spring, even taking a picture with BU developer Andrew Stone in China. However, later he seemed to dislike BU in many statements and conversations on Twitter. In one Twitter statement he’s in favor of Segwit and then other times his tweets tell a different story. Many bitcoin enthusiasts believe F2 Pool’s Chun is very cryptic when explaining the pool’s actual position. Even now as the pool has stated it doesn’t support Segwit2x hard fork, the pool is still signaling ‘NYA intention’ in its mined blocks.

Temporarily Mining Bitcoin Cash

The story goes further as last week F2 Pool began pointing some hashrate towards the Bitcoin Cash network. However, when they joined the chain was more profitable to mine, and now BTC mining has become more profitable, and F2 Pool switched its resource back to the legacy chain. On August 29 the often joking operator of the pool, Wang Chun, stated;

Please allow me to offer my spiritual support to those who are mining BCC/BCH at loss. You are the men.

If F2 Pool is truly leaving the New York Agreement, it may be difficult for miners to continue holding 90 percent support down the road. Presently, F2 Pool captures over 8 percent of the BTC network’s hashrate, representing a large chunk of the mining industry. At press time Segwit2x intention is still at 93 percent, and F2 Pool is still included on that list according to Coin Dance statistics.

The pool still indicates the NYA signaling in the coinbase data of blocks processed by F2 Pool. To some people, due to the nature of F2 Pool’s past statements, it is still uncertain if the Chinese pool has ‘officially’ reneged on the agreement.

What do you think about F2 Pool possibly reneging on the New York Agreement? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, and Coin Dance.

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