As it became known from a message signed by SegWit2x developers and persons who in one way or another had something to do with the project, the Bitcoin fork expected in the middle of November was canceled.
The corresponding message was signed by Mike Belshe (BitGo), Wences Casares (Xapo), Jihan Wu (Bitmain), Jeff Garzik (chief developer of SegWit2x), Peter Smith (Blockchain.info) and Erik Voorhees (ShapeShift).
The message says:
“Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for Bitcoin. Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together.
Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin’s growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x.
As fees rise on the blockchain, we believe it will eventually become obvious that on-chain capacity increases are necessary. When that happens, we hope the community will come together and find a solution, possibly with a blocksize increase. Until then, we are suspending our plans for the upcoming 2MB upgrade.”
In May 2017, the key players in the Bitcoin industry, including Bitmain, Bitfury, F2Pool, Genesis Mining, ShapeShift, Xapo, etc., signed behind closed doors the so-called New York Segregated Witness activation agreement and the hard-fork that had to increase blocksize to 2 MB.
At the same time, the signatures of Bitcoin Core developers, who are considered the official client of the Bitcoin network, were not under the agreement.
This state of affairs aroused discontent among a significant part of the community and actually put the ecosystem on the brink of a split.
Many members of the community, including Bitwala and F2Pool payment services, Bitcoin communities of Brazil, Argentina, Hong Kong, etc., subsequently criticized this agreement for lack of transparency, code imperfection and lack of consensus, and subsequently withdrew from it.
Among supporters of the New York Agreement, there were still large companies, including Coinbase, Chinese giant Bitmain, Blockchain.info, and several other well-known representatives of the crypto industry.
The refusal of Jeff Garzik and his supporters to conduct SegWit2x hard fork means that now the ecosystem has a chance for further healthy development.
Immediately after the news, Bitcoin price collapsed from around $7900 to around $7000, but soon recovered some losses and fluctuated in the range of $7200-$7300.