2017 was the year of scaling controversy when Bitcoin got too big to handle and spent two years deliberating how to scale up the block size to make operations more manageable. One controversial hard fork proposal, the Segregated Witness (SegWit), aimed at code optimisation and doubling the block size, but failed to go into operation as planned in November.

The project's founder has just announced, however, that SegWit2x Bitcoin (BTC) is due to fork on December 28th, when it reaches block 501451. Jaap Terlouw, Founder and Lead Developer, said on the project's official website that Bitcoin has become "almost impossible to use" as a payment method, and that the fork is intended to improve commission and transaction speed on the network.

He also promised BTC holders loyalty rewards in Bitcoin, as well as equivalent balances of their BTC holdings in the new coin, B2X. For investors, this is a major appeal of any new Bitcoin versions (hard forks) as every time a fork occurs their BTC is duplicated in the new coin, essentially supplying them with free money.

As well as SegWit2X, several other forks will soon join the ecosystem, including Bitcoin God (GOD), a private debut version of Bitcoin launched on Christmas Day.