Activation Date Set for Bitcoin’s Taproot Upgrade

Activation Details Still Not Finalized for Taproot Upgrade

As per the Bitcoin Taproot activation proposal, Bitcoin’s economic majority, including miners and node operators running the Bitcoin code could update within two weeks of the signaling period’s start.

Even if the mining pools indicate 90% of Bitcoin’s hashrate support Taproot before the timeout-height then the vast majority of support would signify that the Taproot upgrade was a success.

However, there could be a possibility that the mining pools don’t signal to activate Taproot. For instance, unlike a centralized network, where the central operators can choose for the upgrade, according to their feasibility. In comparison, Bitcoin’s network is decentralized. Hence, upgrades will require deliberate discussions among Bitcoin’s stakeholders such as developers, miners, business, and power users.

For activating Taproot, node operators do have an option to force activate the upgrade if a majority of miners fail to support before the timeout. This would allow node operators to reject blocks from miners who don’t support the upgrade.

No Clear Consensus Reached on the Activation Parameters

Taproot is a proposed Bitcoin protocol upgrade that can be deployed as a forward-compatible soft fork. The upgrade will expands Bitcoin’s smart contract flexibility by combining the Schnorr signature scheme with MAST or Merklized Alternative Script Tree and a new scripting language called Tapscript.

Meanwhile, the IRC public chat concluded the meeting without a clear consensus on the precise activation parameters. Some even opined on the need for reduction of the complexities of the process to get a more informed opinion from the wider community. Although, the members of the IRC chat hardly represent from among Bitcoin’s sprawling international community.