Bitcoin miners have met the conditions for Taproot activation

Bitcoin miners have met the conditions for the activation of the Taproot upgrade. The soft fork is expected to occur around mid-November 2021 at block #709,632, according to developer Peter Wuille.

As of block 687284, Taproot signalling has reached 1815 blocks this period, guaranteeing that absent very deep reorgs, it is guaranteed to lock in. Following that, it will activate at block 709632, probably around mid-November 2021. 🥕

— Pieter Wuille (@pwuille) June 12, 2021

Developers implemented in the May release of Bitcoin Core the Speed Trial activation method. The mechanism envisions a three-month window during which 90% of blocks mined in any of the roughly two-week periods between difficulty retargets must signal support for the fork. 

During the last ‘difficulty epoch’, this criterion was met at block #687,284. According to Taproot Watch, to date 100% of Bitcoin mining pools have signalled support for the upgrade.

Developer Hampus Sjöberg noted that 24.4% of nodes have upgraded to Taproot-enabled software. However, miners have almost five months to install the new Bitcoin Core version.

The number of Bitcoin nodes that is upgraded to support Taproot is still very low (24.4%), if you are running a Bitcoin node, you should consider upgrading to Bitcoin 0.21.1 before #Taproot activates in November.https://t.co/YRbfSVHY2G pic.twitter.com/nK73ECvj7l

— Hampus Sjöberg 🥕🟩 (@hampus_s) June 13, 2021

Marathon Digital Holdings CEO Fred Thiel said on the Thinking Crypto podcast that Taproot will turn Bitcoin into a ‘computational network’. He noted that the upgrade would improve the efficiency of smart contracts, reducing transaction costs. 

Bitcoin Core developer Jeremy Rubin expressed a similar view. In the Unchained podcast he described Taproot as an ‘optimization’ of Bitcoin and added that the initiative would enhance the network’s privacy.

The upgrade will be one of the most significant in the history of the first cryptocurrency, but some experts believe that it represents a potential threat to privacy. 

Read more about Taproot in ForkLog’s educational cards:

As noted, Gemini exchange CEO Tyler Winklevoss called Bitcoin ‘gold 2.0’ and stated that in the next five years the price of the cryptocurrency will rise to $500,000.