This document specifies a BIP16 like soft fork flag day activation of the segregated witness BIP9 deployment known as "segwit".
==Definitions==
"existing segwit deployment" refer to the BIP9 "segwit" deployment using bit 1, between November 15th 2016 and November 15th 2017 to activate BIP141, BIP143 and BIP147.
==Motivation==
Segwit increases the blocksize, fixes transaction malleability, and makes scripting easier to upgrade as well as bringing many other [https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/ benefits].
It is hoped that miners will respond to this BIP by activating segwit early, before this BIP takes effect. Otherwise this BIP will cause the mandatory activation of the existing segwit deployment before the end of midnight November 15th 2017.
==Specification==
All times are specified according to median past time.
This BIP will be active between midnight August 1st 2017 (epoch time 1501545600) and midnight November 15th 2017 (epoch time 1510704000) if the existing segwit deployment is not locked-in or activated before epoch time 1501545600. This BIP will cease to be active when segwit is locked-in.
While this BIP is active, all blocks must set the nVersion header top 3 bits to 001 together with bit field (1<<1) (according to the existing segwit deployment). Blocks that do not signal as required will be rejected.
This deployment is compatible with the existing "segwit" bit 1 deployment scheduled between midnight November 15th, 2016 and midnight November 15th, 2017.
==Rationale==
Historically, the P2SH soft fork (BIP16) was activated using a predetermined flag day where nodes began enforcing the new rules. P2SH was successfully activated with relatively few issues
By orphaning non-signalling blocks during the last month of the BIP9 bit 1 "segwit" deployment, this BIP can cause the existing "segwit" deployment to activate without needing to release a new deployment.
==References==
*[https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-March/013714.html Mailing list discussion]
*[https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.6.0/src/main.cpp#L1281-L1283 P2SH flag day activation]
*[[bip-0009.mediawiki|BIP9 Version bits with timeout and delay]]