A beginner’s guide to the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade

Bitcoin Taproot upgrade explained

Bitcoin (BTC)Taproot update is the most important upgrade the cryptocurrency has experienced since 2017, when Segregated Witness was started. Like SegWit, the Taproot upgrade aims to improve the privacy and efficiency of the network but on a bigger scale and with a potentially more significant effect expected over the years.

Bitcoin(BTC) Taproot upgrade will also encourage the performance of smart contracts, which can be utilized to eliminate intermediaries from transactions and open the door to decentralized finance (DeFi) for the top cryptocurrency.

Who developed Taproot Bitcoin? 

Bitcoin(BTC) Core developers have analyzed ways to expand SegWit capacity since its implementation in 2017. One of the cryptocurrency’s conducting developers, Greg Maxwell, first presented the Taproot proposal in 2018. 

As a soft fork of Bitcoin, Taproot is backward compatible with the software and does not need to be separated into two different parallel blockchains and cryptocurrencies as was the case with Bitcoin Cash. In 2017, SegWit became famous for the dramatic impact it had on cryptocurrency, leading to the fork in the network and the creation of Bitcoin Cash. This upgrade expanded Bitcoin’s block size without sacrificing important properties like decentralization.

What is the Taproot and how does it profit from Bitcoin?

The ultimate goal of the Taproot is to make Bitcoin faster, more efficient and private. 

The update allows multiple signatures and transactions to be batched together, making verifying transactions on Bitcoin’s network faster and more straightforward.

Here’s how the Taproot benefits Bitcoin

The standard bitcoin process prior to Taproot involves verifying transactions individually by validating a digital signature, which is like a user’s fingerprint, against a public key. The Taproot update allows multiple and complex signatures, such as B. multi-signature wallets, instead of individually. The key change that will enable this significant transition is the implementation of Schnorr signatures in addition to the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm.

Three interconnected and simultaneous updates

The Taproot update offers an opportunity to combine three different related proposals aimed at improving Bitcoin’s scalability. Proposals to change the Bitcoin protocol or even fix bugs must follow a specific submission process. In the absence of a central authority, a BIP is used as the standard procedure, starting with simple ideas that developers submit to the community. If the proposal receives relevant attention from other developers, it will be published in the Bitcoin Core GitHub repositories.

BIP 340 – Schnorr Signatures   

Schnorr replaces ECDSA and provides a digital signature scheme that is faster, more secure and less data-intensive than ECDSA.

BIP 341 – Taproot   

Taproot offers a new way to execute Bitcoin(BTC) transactions by enhancing privacy and flexibility for users. It also starts Merklized Alternative Script Trees (MAST), which condense complex Bitcoin(BTC) transactions into a single hash, decreasing transaction fees, minimizing memory usage and improving Bitcoin’s scalability.

BIP 342 – Tapscript

Tapscript is the scripting language utilized for Taproot script-path spends. This update leverages Schnorr’s efficiency and enables more flexibility on coming upgrades.

Bitcoin Taproot Smart contracts

The Taproot upgrade is a game-changer for Bitcoin’s utility as it makes smart contracts cheaper and smaller, due to the smaller space they occupy on the Blockchain. Smart contracts are Blockchain-based self-executing deals between two individuals that can make a secure transaction without the requirement for an intermediate.

What the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade means for investors

Taproot is a technical update, and most users won’t even realize it happened. However, investors should pay attention to this event as the potential impact over the years on the leading cryptocurrency can be huge. Taproot is the long-awaited solution. to many of the traditional Bitcoin problems. Resolving scalability has always been a  priority for bitcoin developers, and  Taproot provides the relevant tools needed to make bitcoin faster and more efficient. As a result, fees become lower since the information size of advanced transactions can decrease, going area for additional entries to be processed on the blockchain. The Taproot will directly have an effect on the cost-efficiency and practicality of the Lighting Network, which becomes more versatile for developers who wish to make it, cheaper and more personal for users.