{"id":36987,"date":"2021-06-06T10:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T08:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/?p=36987"},"modified":"2023-03-15T00:32:41","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T00:32:41","slug":"taproot-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/taproot-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"Taproot – What is this Bitcoin update and what is it for?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Taproot<\/a> is one of the most anticipated technological upgrades to Bitcoin<\/a> blockchain since the introduction of SegWit in 2017<\/strong>. The Taproot will be a soft fork that will improve Bitcoin\u2019s scripts to increase privacy and improve upon other factors related to complex transactions.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The way Bitcoin blockchain works in the background has evolved many times since Bitcoin was invented in 2008. The history of the first blockchain is rich with soft and hard forks. A soft fork involves the modification of an existing blockchain. Whereas a hark fork creates a new blockchain altogether.<\/p>\n The first major hard fork of Bitcoin blockchain was Bitcoin XT that happened in 2014.<\/strong> Bitcoin XT aimed to increase the network transaction speed by increasing the block size from 1MB to 8 MB.<\/p>\n While the original blockchain has the capacity of executing 7 TPS, Bitcoin XT was proposed to perform up to 24 transactions per second. The hard vanished from the scene after some initial transaction.<\/p>\n Bitcoin XT was followed by Bitcoin Classic in 2016<\/strong> that proposed a smaller block size of 2MB in comparison to the 8MB of Bitcoin XT. The protocol is still in existence, but without any significant adoption.<\/p>\n Segregated Witness (SegWit) was the first proposed soft fork of Bitcoin in 2017 that revolved around making Bitcoin scalable and reducing transaction fees through the separation of transactions on the Bitcoin network from the actual data.<\/p>\n But this soft led to another hard fork, Bitcoin Cash<\/strong>. It is the most successful fork of Bitcoin as its native BCH coin was once the fourth largest crypto asset by market cap. This was followed by Bitcoin Gold<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The protocol still exists but has been criticized as it has suffered repeated DDOS attacks, and even the infamous 51% attack in 2018. Bitcoin Cash then itself was hard forked in 2018 by self-claimed Satoshi Nakamoto to create Bitcoin SV<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Taproot is another soft fork proposed for Bitcoin.<\/strong> Let\u2019s take a detailed look at this Bitcoin update.<\/p>\n Taproot<\/strong> is a soft fork proposed for Bitcoin blockchain to improve Bitcoin\u2019s scripts to increase privacy and improve upon other factors related to complex transactions.<\/strong> Taproot was first proposed<\/a> in 2018 by Gregory Maxwell, a Bitcoin Core (BTC) contributor, and former chief technology officer at Blockstream.<\/p>\n The upgrade, that will implement the Schnorr signature scheme into Bitcoin code<\/strong>, seeks to enhance the overall usability of the network by making transactions cheaper, faster, and easier to deploy but also eventually allow for the deployment of smart contracts, and improved privacy.<\/p>\n It will also make transactions on the Lightning Network cheaper, more flexible, and more private.<\/strong> Furthermore, Taproot makes future Bitcoin upgrades easier<\/strong> by reforming Bitcoin\u2019s scripting language.<\/p>\n Making any amendments to Bitcoin is hard as there is no one in charge and achieving consensus among such a diverse and dispersed group of participants is a challenge. In March, a proposal called Speedy Trial was passed to see if miners are ready for activation of Taproot.<\/p>\n Per the activation rules set by Speedy Trial, 90% of blocks mined within one of Bitcoin\u2019s difficulty periods need to signal support for the upgrade.<\/p>\n The compromise allots a three-month activation window, during which time the network requires a certain threshold of miners to signal for the upgrade. The 90% threshold has to be reached within one of the roughly two-week-long or 2016 block difficulty periods<\/a> before the three-month activation window ends on August 11 this year.<\/p>\n If reached, Taproot will be locked in for activation in November. Until now, no signaling period has achieved this threshold. Remember, if the threshold is not met, Speedy Trial will be a waste of time as Taproot will be not implemented.<\/p>\n The main goal of the Bitcoin Taproot update to change the way Bitcoin’s scripts operate to improve privacy, scalability, and security. This will be accomplished by combining Taproot with a related upgrade called Schnorr signatures<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bitcoin’s scripting language may seem simple but it offers an amount of functionality. Transactions on the Bitcoin network can use various features that make them more complex, including timelock releases, multi-signature requirements, and others.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
What is Taproot?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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How does the Taproot update work?<\/h2>\n