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BREAKING: The Bitcoin network welcomes Taproot soft fork upgrade

November 14, 2021No Comments


The Bitcoin (BTC) successfully activated the Taproot fork after a blocking consensus of 90% of miners and mining pools between blocks 709,488 and 709,632. The milestone signifies the first major update for Bitcoin since August 2017, which saw the launch of Bitcoin's leading layer two solution, Lightning Network and Segregated Witness (SegWit).

The Taproot update aims to improve the scripting capabilities and privacy of the Bitcoin network. To do this, soft branching introduces the concept of the merkelized abstract syntax tree (MAST). According to a website dedicated to Taproot run by a prominent Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjรถberg:

"[MAST] it can help make smart contracts more efficient and private by revealing only the relevant parts of the contract when it is spent. "

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Sjรถberg pointed out that the activation of Taproot shows that Bitcoin can perform network updates again, which is extremely important for the longevity of the Bitcoin network. "I think that's the biggest win," he added.

Sjรถberg, who is also a developer of a Bitcoin Lightning Blixt Wallet, believes that the Taproot update allows exploring off-chain capabilities, so as not to put too much load on the network's Bitcoin nodes.

Additionally, Sjรถberg believes that MAST can also help improve the privacy of the old Lightning Network "if Lightning implementations choose to adopt Taproot." The developers of the various Lightning Network node implementations met in Zurich, Switzerland, just a few weeks ago at the LN Summit 2021 to discuss possible upgrade paths:

"One of the things that was discussed in the meeting was whether it is better to update Lightning in small iterations or to do it as a large package."

Additionally, Sjรถberg explained how payment channels under normal circumstances can be made indistinguishable from normal transactions using Taproot for Lightning Network:

โ€œIt is not possible to know if a Taproot transaction is just a normal payment or if it belongs to a Lightning channel. This is important for the fungibility and thus the censorship resistance of Bitcoin. "

The successful activation of Taproot is attributed to Speedy Trial, a soft fork deployment method that requires 90% of miners to flag the update deployment. As Sjรถberg explained, "The signaling method works in 2016 block periods, which means that within a 2016 block period, 90% or 1,815 of the 2016 blocks should indicate they are ready."

In June 2021, Bitcoin miners achieved a 90% consensus for the first time and Sjรถberg tweeted the announcement:

However, the Taproot update also marks the end of Speedy Trial implementations and future updates to the Bitcoin network will require the provision of new soft fork implementation methods. "Taproot opens up a world of possibilities, but the first thing I'd personally like to see is a" MuSig 2 "transaction." Sharing advice for other Bitcoin developers, Sjรถberg said:

"While we shouldn't take anything for granted in Bitcoin, I personally would like to eventually see 'Cross-Entry Signature Aggregation' as a future fork for Bitcoin."

Related: Bitcoin Lightning nodes and channels hit record highs

In the nearly 13 years of Bitcoin's existence, the Bitcoin network has gone through numerous community-driven hard and soft forks. While the Taproot update has yet to prove its worth going forward, the Lightning Network continues to reach new heights.

On September 28, the Lightning Network witnessed a 160% increase in the number of nodes in the span of 12 months, in addition to seeing a 170% jump in the number of channels since January 2021.

As of November 11, the capacity of the Bitcoin network before the Taproot soft fork was at an all-time high of 3,220 BTC, worth nearly $ 210 million.