To split or not to split, that's the question

The chart below is a straightforward illustration showing Segwit’s timeline and possible Bitcoin scaling outcomes.

Explanation of Technical terms

Soft Fork: A backward-compatible change to the bitcoin protocol wherein only previously valid blocks/transactions are made invalid, but old nodes will still recognise the new blocks as valid.

UASF: User-activated soft fork is a soft fork activated by flag day or node enforcement instead of miner’s signalling.

Hard Fork: A bitcoin protocol upgrade that introduces a new rule to the network that isn’t compatible with the older node. Old nodes will not validate new blocks and new nodes will not validate old blocks either.

Segwit: Segregated Witness (BIP141) is a soft fork that aims to speed up transaction time and introduce potential scaling projects like Lightning Network.

Segwit2X: Includes Segwit and later a 2MB block Hard Fork.

Bitcoin ABC: A scaling proposal supported by miners and mining pools.

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