Speedy Trial Success — Bitcoin Upgrade Taproot Set to Lock-in This Weekend

Bitcoin Upgrade Taproot Inches Toward Lock-in, Success Means Activation in November

Participants involved with the Bitcoin (BTC) network are preparing to see a softfork in November if the signaling status of “Speedy trial support for versionbits #21377” gets locked in this weekend.

According to the Github “Taproot-Activation” documentation, the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade involves an “upgrade that can be deployed as a forward-compatible soft fork.”

The upgrade also combines the “Schnorr signature scheme with MAST (Merklized Alternative Script Tree) and a new scripting language called Tapscript, Taproot will expand Bitcoin’s smart contract flexibility, while offering more privacy by letting users mask complex smart contracts as a regular bitcoin transaction.”

Bitcoiners believe the Taproot upgrade and adding the Schnorr signature scheme with MAST will benefit BTC’s privacy and scaling.

At the time of writing, the website taproot.watch indicates that the current signal ratio is 98.39% and “101 additional signaling blocks required for the softfork to lock in,” the web portal says.

The popular bitcoin evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos tweeted about the lock-in period coming up and said: “Taproot will be locked-in for a November activation in the next 36 hours. A big success for Bitcoin, Taproot introduces a second signature algo (Schnorr) and significant privacy features. Also a big success for the “Speedy Trial” activation method with

If Taproot is successful it will be the largest upgrade Bitcoin (BTC) has seen in four years since the introduction of Segregated Witness (Segwit) in 2017.

On Friday, software developer Jimmy Song tweeted about Taproot getting closer to lock-in. “Taproot seems to be inching its way to lock-in. Blocks have been a bit on the slow side (projected difficulty adjustment is -4.5%),” Song tweeted. “By this time tomorrow, we should be all set for Taproot.”

The taproot.watch programmer and noncustodial Lightning Network Blixt wallet developer Hampus Sjöberg also tweeted about Taproot locking in soon. “Taproot is a 100 years softfork,” Sjöberg wrote.

“Merging every contract and use-case under a single transaction type ‘Pay to Taproot’ will in the long-run yield a more fungible and robust blockchain. This is how you do it. This is how you design a blockchain,” the developer Hampus Sjöberg added.

What do you think about Taproot locking in for November activation this weekend? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.