Report said that Bitcoin’s upcoming Taproot upgrade will go live also sometime by the end of 2021.
It has been reported that many Bitcoin (BTC) mining pools seem to already be signaling their support for the activation and as per data available on Taproot.watch, a website designed by core Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg, Taproot signaling currently accounts for about 56% of BTC’s total hashing power.
However, two of the largest Bitcoin mining pools by hash rate, AntPool and F2Pool, have been major proponents for this upgrade from the very beginning. Even other relatively large mining operators, such as Foundry USA and Slush Pool, have also expressed their support for the activation.
#Taproot #Bitcoin #BTC 47.08% AntPool & F2Pool, the two largest mining pools are a go pic.twitter.com/zD7zF6XUJP — Rod 🌎🌍🌏 (@rodneyes) May 4, 2021
The report said that Taproot can be thought of as the latest step in Bitcoin’s evolutionary path because the upgrade seeks not only 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.
Taproot also proposes significant privacy promises, i.e., it seeks to make all transactions look the same to everyone except the transacting parties. This potential camouflage-based framework seems as though it has been inspired by security-centric crypto offerings available in the market today, potentially moving Bitcoin closer to some privacy-focused coins, at least from a design standpoint.
If the Taproot upgrade goes live this year, it stands to reduce Bitcoin’s transaction fees and enhance certain aspects related to individual privacy and security. https://t.co/V3VNXwSBSP — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) May 7, 2021
Antoni Trenchev, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at crypto lending platform Nexo, said that the proposed Taproot update is proof of Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and that the network is always looking to improve and grow. He also believes that the upgrade serves as a reminder to investors that, unlike gold, Bitcoin is a dynamic store of value in every sense.
He added:
“All these admittedly major improvements pave the way for even wider Bitcoin adoption and continued price appreciation. In all, Taproot is one of BTC’s most anticipated updates since the block size upgrade of 2018.”
Likewise, Joel Edgerton, the Chief Operating Officer of cryptocurrency exchange bitFlyer USA, said that even though most in the crypto community seem to be focused on Bitcoin’s price action at the moment, what they are overlooking is the fact that BTC’s underlying technology is what actually gives it its value, and Taproot is an important development, for several reasons.
He explained:
“Firstly, it reduces transaction data size, which could lower transaction fees for complex transactions. Additionally, it increases privacy on multisig and time-locking wallets by making it difficult to distinguish them from simple, single-sign wallets while also allowing for increased wallet functionality by allowing developers to use vaulting logic.”
Thus, Taproot demonstrates the Bitcoin community’s maturity and how everyone seems to have learned valuable lessons from the Bitcoin upgrade wars of 2017.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Freepik