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.