Taproot is a form of renewal of Bitcoin that develops new features that were not previously owned and could not be done by Bitcoin. Taproot’s development stems from a proposal by Gregory Maxwell in January 2018. Gregory Maxwell was previously the former CTO of Blockstream, which is a company that markets bitcoin storage and transfer services, as well as other digital assets. This taproot proposal contains about increasing the security of Bitcoin transactions, and transaction efficiency so that Bitcoin transaction fees become cheaper and faster. Currently, it takes a relatively long time to transfer Bitcoin from one wallet to another, this is not efficiently applied to daily transaction activities. Transaction fees also tend to continue to increase along with the increasing popularity of Bitcoin which causes the volume of Bitcoin transactions to increase.
What Changes Does Taproot Make
Taproot is a soft fork. Unlike a hard fork that makes changes in the Bitcoin software protocol, changing old rules or ways of working with new ways of working. Softfork made a change to the software protocol where only previously valid blocks of transactions were made invalid. Since the old node will recognize the new block as valid, the soft fork is backward compatible. Taproot simplifies complex transactions in Bitcoin, making them simpler, so that they become like standard transactions carried out between humans. Taproot works using the Schnorr signature system.
Benefits of Taproot
Taproot makes transaction processing on Bitcoins require less amount of data. This less amount of data causes the work to process transactions to be lighter, so transactions can be processed faster. In addition it can have an impact on cheaper Bitcoin transaction fees. Currently one of the obstacles in using Bitcoin is the high transaction fees. Previously the fee was still considered low because the price of Bitcoin was not as expensive as it is today, but the increase in the price of Bitcoin causes an increase in transaction fees, besides the density of the Bitcoin network also has an impact on increasing transaction costs if the transaction is to be processed quickly by the Bitcoin system. Another benefit of taproot is in the increased privacy, which allows Anonymity on smart Contrack, but by making it a simple payment system.
Since the introduction of Seg witt in 2017, Taproot is one of the most eagerly awaited technological upgrades of the Bitcoin blockchain. Taproot will be a soft fork that enhances bitcoin scripts to improve privacy and other factors associated with complex transactions. In its impact on the Cryptocurrency market, Segregated Witness (SegWit) is the first bitcoin taproot proposed in 2017. It is to separate transactions on the Bitcoin network from real data in order to make Bitcoin scalable and reduce transaction costs.
But taproot also has its rivals, such as: bitcoin cache. Which is where bitcoin is most successful as the underlying Crypto BCH was once the fourth largest cryptocurrency asset by market value. Taproot was first suggested in 2018 by Gregory Maxwell, a Bitcoin Core (BTC) contributor and former CTO of Blocksstream.
Bitcoin taproot goal
The taproot-based upgrade will implement the Schnorr signature scheme in the bitcoin code, which aims to improve the overall usability of the network by making transaction distribution cheaper, faster and easier, and ultimately enabling smart contract distribution and increasing privacy.
It will also make transactions cheaper, more flexible, and more private on the Lightning Network. Taproot is also reforming the Bitcoin scripting language to make it easier to upgrade Bitcoin in the future.
How does the Taproot update work?
The main goal of the Bitcoin Taproot update is to change the way Bitcoin scripts are executed to improve privacy, scaling, and security. This is achieved by combining Taproot with a related enhancement called the Schnorr signature. That way, making it more complex, including fixed-time publishing, multiple signature requirements, and much more.
What advantages does Taproot offer bitcoin?
Is it true that the transaction fees are lower
With Taproot, the amount of data for complex transactions will be greatly reduced. That means it can significantly reduce transaction costs for using more complex Bitcoin wallet features (such as multiple signatures or time locks).
Historically, we know that Bitcoin transaction fees are at high levels, due to its increasing popularity, which will have a positive impact on the cryptocurrency with the largest market cap.
According to some sources, Taproot will also enable batch verification, and bitcoin full nodes will be able to verify 1,000 Taproot signatures at about the same time as verifying ECDSA signatures.
Taproot bitcoin today
Taproot activation on the Bitcoin blockchain still has a long way to go. Based on survey data, 90% of the six bitcoin mining periods before August 11, 2021 must be taproot supported.
Taproot Watch data shows that 880 or 44.15 percent of blocks showed support during the current signal period for the 2016 block, with 23 blocks unsupported. 1103 or 54.85% will still be mined during hard times. That means that 925 blocks, or 45.85% or more, are required to meet the threshold. If this occurs during the current signal period or pre-August 11th, Taproot will be locked for November activation.
Why should there be a soft fork?
For ordinary people, of course this is a difficult thing to understand, but for Bitcoin Core developers or developers, this is an important process and will continue to be carried out, because after all Bitcoin is a technology, and whose name is technology there will always be updates to get performance. What’s even better, especially for Bitcoin, is of course the focus is more on security or privacy because that’s what cryptocurrencies were created for. A Bitcoin transaction itself is actually very complex, with various features and conditions that must be carried out, for example such as multi-signature requirements or joint management, for example a transaction is valid only if there are signatures of 2 of 3 key holders, then there is a timelock in the form of a smart contract that can function to limit spending some Bitcoins up to a certain time, and so on.
Without Taproot, Bitcoin transactions that use the features above, can be easily detected and tracked by anyone, and closing this gap is certainly highly expected and must be supported by the entire community, especially all Bitcoin miners themselves. With Taproot, in addition to increasing user privacy, it is also to make multi-signature easier to run and use. In addition, Taproot can increase efficiency and transactions by reducing the amount of data to be transferred and stored on the blockchain, lowering transaction costs, and this innovation is the basis for developing blockchain networks to support transactions without intermediaries even better. Taproot itself is planned to be run in November 2021, provided that by August 2021, there are at least 90% of miners who agree to the proposal.
