Bitcoin Developer to Become Binance Billboard in Exchange for SegWit Support

An amusing exchange between Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Bitcoin enthusiast Udi Wertheimer took place via Twitter. In an apparent shot-in-the-dark, Wertheimer asked Binance to add more features to its Bitcoin support that would make depositing at the exchange more efficient in terms of privacy the burden it places on the blockchain. https://twitter.com/udiWertheimer/status/1179361665663619072 SegWit, for those that don’t know, was an update to Bitcoin that was activated via a soft fork during the summer of 2017. It reduces the amount of transaction data stored in each block, thus raising its overall capacity. Since it was introduced, SegWit adoption has steadily grown. According to TransactionFee.info, SegWit payments now account for over 50 percent of all transactions occurring on the Bitcoin network. However, some of the entities making the largest transactions are yet to introduce support for the scaling system. SegWit promotes greater blockchain efficiency while allowing new deposit address generation that increases user privacy. When a user repeatedly uses the same address for something, linking total balances to that individual becomes much easier. New deposit addresses represent only a small increase in privacy, however. They might protect your total balance from your employer or someone your transact with but blockchain forensics teams will likely have little trouble linking an individual to a wallet even when using such a feature. Interestingly, Zhao replied to Wertheimer’s offer and after some back-and-forth, the two came to an agreement. Binance will apparently introduce SegWit and new address generation support before the end of 2019 and when it does, Wertheimer will advertise the Binance brand via his personal Twitter account for the rest of the year. This will expose the Binance logo to the Bitcoin dev’s 28,400 followers, who are presumably all well familiar with the exchange already. That said, Wertheimer does appear to have quite a special Binance logo for the occasion. Before offering his expertise to the cryptocurrency exchange to help with making the changes, the developer wrote:

“Ok sir i will have the best binance logo avatar you’ve ever seen, guaranteed! will put it up as soon as segwit + new address generation is enabled.”

Are you surprised that Binance has taken so long to introduce SegWit? Do you think both parties will make good on their deal? Comment below!