Bitcoin surges as miners avert split for now

Bitcoin prices surged this week as an overwhelming majority of  miners, the computer operators who maintain its network, backed a  software upgrade that will boost the speed of processing transactions,  likely averting a split that could have resulted in multiple versions of  the digital currency. Through an online voting mechanism, miners  representing 99% of the cryptocurrency’s computing power, backed a new  piece of software, known as Segregated Witness, or SegWit, that would  boost bitcoin’s processing power without altering the underlying  software 

 The debate leading up to the vote marked a split that largely pitted  miners and entrepreneurs, who wanted to increase block size and maximize  bitcoin’s value as a payments network, versus developers who fear  larger block sizes will increase operating costs for miners, driving  some out and leading to more centralized control