After weeks of contemplation, F2Pool has finally decided to support Bitcoin Core’s Segregated Witness (SegWit) on both Bitcoin and Litecoin.
On April 14, Wang Chun, the owner of F2Pool, the second largest Bitcoin mining pool, announced the result of an internal survey conducted amongst its miners. Chun disclosed that 56 percent of miners within the F2Pool mining pool network were in favor of SegWit.
As 56% from the poll in favor of segwit & agreed UASF is bad. We'll respect ur opinion and implement segwit on both BTC & LTC soon. Thanks. pic.twitter.com/bOI8VusM2j
— Wang Chun (@f2pool_wangchun) April 15, 2017
Yes to SegWit, no to UASF
In consideration of its miners and their support toward SegWit, Chun and the rest of the F2Pool mining team believed that signaling SegWit would be the preferable decision for both the organization and the Bitcoin community. More importantly, Chun did not want the community to go down the path of a user-activated soft fork, which essentially eliminates the authority of miners in the SegWit activation process.
Samson Mow, former BTCC executive and Blockstream CSO, stated that Chun and the F2Pool team made an intelligent decision by signaling SegWit, as it further strengthens their opposition to UASF and appeals to the Bitcoin community.
Mow said:
“Wang Chun is a smart guy. SW won't activate without Antpool, ViaBTC, BTC.TOP , GBMiners, Bitclub, CANOE and Bitcoin.com so he can signal now and simultaneously establish his opposition to UASF.”
One of the major reasons why mining pools like F2Pool are against UASF is because the mechanism allows node operators without the presence of miners and their hashrate to activate a soft fork by a fixed date. For instance, a UASF as noted in Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 148 would activate SegWit by Nov. 15 if it garners enough support from the community.
Since UASF completely disregards the authority of miners, mining pools and companies like F2Pool are opposed to the mechanism.
Already mining SegWit blocks
With Chun’s early statement on April 15, F2Pool already started to mine SegWit blocks. If the pool allocates its entire hashrate to support SegWit, which according to sources is close to nine percent, SegWit’s miner support would most likely surpass 30 percent by the end of this week.
Chun and F2Pool’s abrupt decision to support SegWit came only four days after the pool owner’s strong opposition to SegWit on Bitcoin.
On April 12, Chun wrote:
“SegWit will be a disaster. I am not going to support it on Bitcoin because I am a Bitcoin holder. I've tried my best to love Core. But Core doesn't love me. Now I know Charlie Lee has a backup plan and it is called UASF.”
It is still unclear whether F2Pool is truly trying to look out for the best interests of its miners and the community or if signaling SegWit is the optimal method of rejecting UASF.