Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by volume, has integrated Segregated Witness (SegWit) for Bitcoin (BTC) deposits.
SegWit support has been extended to Christmas Eve deposits, Binance said in an official statement. The protocol upgrade was originally only enabled for withdrawals.
As of now, Binance users can transfer money to a SegWit address (bech32) by selecting the BTC network (SegWit). Binance stated:
“Please note that SegWit should help reduce fees. However, if you mistakenly send incompatible assets to the address, your funds will not be recoverable and will result in permanent losses. “
Implemented in 2017, SegWit is a Bitcoin protocol upgrade that can be used to scale the network and fix related bugs. SegWit is known for updating data on the blockchain by separating signatures from transaction data. This protocol upgrade allows more transactions to be stored in a single block, increasing transaction capacity.
Data from transactionfee.info shows that around two thirds of Bitcoin payments currently use SegWit. Although Bitcoin has emerged as a monetary tool for storing value, it continues to face limitations on scalability that some believe have hindered its adoption for everyday use.
The Lightning Network was offered as a viable Layer 2 scaling solution for Bitcoin as a payment protocol. Unlike SegWit, a soft fork update to the Bitcoin protocol, the Lightning Network is an extra layer that can enable instant, lower-cost transactions.
Despite limited transaction capacity, Bitcoin remains the de facto leader in the digital currency market. Dominance over other crypto assets recently hit an annual high. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance rate was 68.7%, according to CoinMarketCap.
