Coinbase and Bitfinex announce support for SegWit

Two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges are now ready to implement Segregated Witness (SegWit), the scalability upgrade for Bitcoin that was released last year.

Yesterday, largest US cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, announced that it had finished testing SegWit for Bitcoin on its platform and was aiming to roll out the upgrade to all its customers by mid-next week.

“Our engineering team has finished testing of SegWit for Bitcoin on Coinbase,” said in a tweet. “We will be starting a phased launch to customers over the next few days and are targeting a 100% launch to all customers by mid next week.”

SegWit integration has been requested by many Coinbase users and even prompted the launch of an online petition, which gathered over 12,000 signatures.

Also yesterday, Hong Kong-based platform Bitfinex announced that it had already added support for Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals from P2SH Segregated Witness. The company said that the SegWit integration meant that its users could benefit from “lower BTC withdrawal fees (approximately 15%) and improved processing times on transactions across the Bitcoin network.”

“By supporting SegWit addresses, Bitfinex is tackling three of the biggest crypto-enthusiast concerns: transaction fees, transaction speed, and total network capacity,” Bitfinex’s chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino said in a statement. “We are delighted that through this implementation we can provide our customers with bitcoin withdrawal fees that are up to 20 percent lower, as well as faster-than-ever transaction speeds.”