Bitcoin miners around the world have just approved the first bitcoin upgrade in four years. It’s called Taproot, and it’s due to take effect in November. Taproot, the most significant improvement to Bitcoin protocol in years, has taken a big step towards activation. 90% of the Bitcoin mining hash rate signalled for the protocol improvement.
The “Speedy trail” lock-in period for bitcoin network upgrade Taproot is now complete. Overall, 1815 of the total 2016 trialocks have signalled in favour of the upgrade during the second difficulty period.
All recognised mining pools signalled for the upgrade, with Slushpool being the first to do so. According to data from taproot.watch the block height 687,285 by mining pool Slushpool achieved the lock-in.
What is the bitcoin Taproot upgrade?
Taproot is Bitcoin’s most anticipated upgrade since Segregated witness (SegWit) in 2017. The main focus of SegWit was scaling the bitcoin protocol. The taproot will outfit Bitcoin with a new signature scheme known as Schnorr Signatures. It will open up new possibilities for privacy, multisignature wallets and security, as well as scaling.
There was enough support from the miners to go ahead with Taproot soft Fork. The next phase of activation is a five-month waiting period, in November. Miners and nodes will have the opportunity to update their software to the newest version of Bitcoin core, Bitcoin Core 0.21.1.
Bitcoin Core 0.21.1 contains activation logic for the Taproot Soft fork. The full activation of Taproot is set for network block 709,632, which is expected to occur sometime in mid-November.
What are its Benefits?
The taproot update will activate the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) relevant to Taproot and contained in Bitcoin core 0.211 automatically kick in. After that, all upgraded nodes and devices will be able to recognize and accept transactions made using that upgraded protocol. Taproot address will use the Schnorr signature, replacing Bitcoin’s current elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA).
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