The Taproot update — slated to be deployed in November if at least 90% of miners signal support before August 11 — is expected to enhance Bitcoin’s smart contract capabilities and boost privacy.
“Taproot is an upgrade that we see not only benefiting Bitcoin.
SegWit, which was introduced to increase the blockchain’s capability of processing more transactions per second, was surrounded by controversy.
This means there is no controlling group or central body to decide which Bitcoin upgrades get implemented.
To make the process easier this time, last year, De La Torre headed Taproot Activation, an initiative to gauge mining pools’ willingness to implement Taproot.
Despite the unanimity among the biggest mining pools, the method of implementation was up for debate.
After the activation discussions led to a stalemate, Bitcoin Core developers David Harding and Russell O’Connor finally decided on “Speedy Trial” as the deployment method.
Speedy Trial, which began this month, requires that 90% of miners signal their support for the upgrade by including a “signal bit” in the blocks they mine.
If the required threshold is reached before August 11, Taproot will be “locked in” for activation in November.
Miners are currently in their third signaling period which has 162 signaling blocks at the time of going to press.
Although it was too late for the last signaling period, it means Taproot could be “locked-in” for activation during the current epoch if a similar consensus level is reached.
According to a CoinGeek report, it might take a while before 90% of the miners put their money where their mouth is and signal for Taproot activation, despite the verbal consensus.
When her head is not buried behind a book, she writes about technology like cryptocurrency, blockchain, AI and more.
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