BITCOIN CORE TAPROOT UPGRADE

Taproot is a proposed Bitcoin upgrade that would allow for increased transactional privacy. But what is Taproot and why does Bitcoin need it? Our essentials guide explains.

What exactly is Taproot, and why is it needed?īitcoin’s Taproot upgrade proposal has reached 74% consensus among miners, meaning that the vast majority of are now running it.

The upgrade is said to bring more privacy and flexibility in Bitcoin transactions.Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade has been almost three years in the works, but has reached 74% consensus among miners.In about 21 hours, Taproot, the long-anticipated #Bitcoin upgrade, will activate at block 709,632, opening the door for developers to integrate new features that will improve privacy, scalability and security on the network. Improvements enabled by it will take time to see in practice and we still need additional upgrades if we want robust privacy guarantees for the majority of bitcoin users.- ODELL November 13, 2021 The addition of Taproot to bitcoin will bring additional privacy to bitcoin users but is not a magic bullet. Chain analysis companies now have no chance.- softsimon November 12, 2021īitcoiners rooting for DeFi enforcement actions when taproot is about to bring DeFi to Bitcoin. Imagine purchasing 1 BTC off an KYC exchange and immediately coinswapping it trustlessly with someone else. Taproot 🌱 enables invisible Coinswaps which for the first time breaks the traces of your coins similar to a coinjoin. Enhanced privacy, easier scaling, and more building optionality are the best positive developments for the world's largest and oldest cryptocurrency network.įor a fuller picture on Taproot-related conversation, here’s a selection of several hot takes and snarky jabs about Taproot from Twitter. The activation marks a huge accomplishment for years of tedious and tireless developer work. With Taproot, Bitcoin's future is even brighter than before. As is tradition, Blockstream provided hats for the upgrade.Maxim Orlovsky published some helpful diagrams on Taproot inputs and outputs.Two external resources are worth sharing for Taproot enthusiasts looking for more content related to the protocol upgrade. AoUbs4ma9m- Mining Memo November 13, 2021 Over the next 12 months, hopefully that number increases dramatically. Enthusiasm over the upgrade should be tempered by viewing Taproot as a foundation for Bitcoin builders to work from, not a final solution to Bitcoin’s scaling and privacy nor a death blow to alternate blockchain networks building related financial products for their ecosystems.įor starters, only 54% of Bitcoin nodes have updated to support the upgrade. Taproot’s activation is just the beginning though. Bitcoin holders who transact from a multi-signature storage solution for extra security won’t be identifiable. Privacy benefits from the Taproot upgrade come from single- and multi-signature on-chain transactions appear identically on the network’s ledger.on Bitcoin’s blockchain and across Bitcoin’s layers (e.g., Lightning), which fuels much of the decentralized finance-related excitement for Bitcoin’s ecosystem. Taproot also enhances the potential uses for complex transaction types, rules, etc. With Schnorr, multi-signature transactions and tooling also becomes exponentially easier to use and build.Transactions signed with Schnorr signatures include less data (approximately 12% less), which makes them cheaper to process and reduces the storage requirements for validating nodes compared to ECDSA-signed transactions.What are new are the possibilities this upgrade brings to Bitcoin? The upgrade has been highly anticipated by many sectors of the Bitcoin industry for at least the past year when mining pools started signaling their support. The excitement over Taproot isn’t especially new either. And numerous Bitcoin developers have supported replacing Bitcoin’s signing algorithm-ECDSA-with Schnorr, which this upgrade accomplishes. As far back as 2014, Bitcoin Core contributor Greg Maxwell and Blockstream CEO Adam Back, and others were discussing Schnorr signature use in Bitcoin. The idea was first proposed in 1988 by cryptographer Claus-Peter Schnorr. Want more mining insights like this? Subscribe to Compass Mining MemoĪ key part of the Taproot upgrade – adding Schnorr signatures – aren’t new technology.

Bitcoin core taproot