Taproot update on Bitcoin network supported by 98% of miners

Taproot update – The biggest change to the Bitcoin blockchain since 2017 has been tentatively supported by 98% of pools.Its release (Core 0.21.1) was released on May 2, 2021.

From this point on, it is necessary that 90% of miners include a “signal bit” in the blocks found. This is a release-specified token that lets the community know that the pool is soft-forked.

The threshold of 90% is expected to be achieved within a period ofduring which 2016 blocks are mined. While maintaining the current activity and difficulty of mining, the end date – 11th August. After this, the window of opportunity to run the update should be closed.

If the required threshold is reached before thendeadline, Taproot will be frozen for activation in November. If the required number of signal bits are not registered on the blockchain, the changes will be discussed and adjusted again. But this is unlikely, because most miners have already announced support for the update.  

According to Taproot Watch, nearly 17% of blocks are signaling support for Taproot so far.

It has already been supported by 18 pools, including SlushPool, Poolin and AntPool.

The question of the need for change was first raisedannounced in 2018. The update, scheduled to roll out in November, should add smart contract capabilities to Bitcoin and increase transaction privacy. 

Before this, Bitcoin had only experienced one majoran update to SegWit that was implemented in 2017. Back then, the community was solving the problems of scaling and anonymity. As a solution to the problem, the soft fork increased the block size, and validator signatures were stored on the blockchain separately from the transaction history.  

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