CNBC reported that Bitcoin’s latest upgrade, ‘Taproot,’ has been overwhelmingly supported by miners all over the globe and will take effect in November.
The new upgrade would mean greater transaction privacy and efficiency which would enable smart contracts, a feature of the blockchain technology which eliminates the need for middlemen.
Taproot is the first major update since 2017’s ‘Segregated Witness(SegWit),’ which was in 2017. SegWit’s main focus was on scaling Bitcoin’s protocol. Taproot will equip Bitcoin using a new signature scheme called Schnorr signatures.
Bitcoin currently uses the “Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm,” which was created from the private keys that secures its Bitcoin wallet and makes sure that it is only ever used by its owner.
Taproot will, on the other hand, switch to Schnorr Signatures, which is multisignature transactions unreadable. The report cited Alejandro De La Torre as Vice President of Poolin, a major Hong Kong mining pool.
Brandon Arvanaghi, a former security engineer at crypto exchange Gemini, stated that it was possible to “hide who you really are a bit better.”
This would give bitcoin addresses on the public blockchain greater anonymity, but simple transactions will be indistinguishable to complex transactions that require multiple signatures.
Smart contracts will be cheaper and take up less space on the blockchain with this upgrade. Taproot’s most important asset is…smart contract,” stated Fred Thiel (CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, a cryptocurrency mining specialist. It’s the main driver of innovation on ethereum. Smart contracts give you the ability to build apps and businesses on blockchain.
It would take approximately five months to upgrade, as there is a lot of testing required before it can be fully integrated into the system.