Taproot proposal

[pooya87]

I just want to confirm that new nodes also includes 0.21.0 and 0.21.1 ? Or what is the earliest core version that has some taproot code in them already? A good chunk of the current network are still running 0.21.1 and 0.21.0, and a not insignificant are also running 0.20.1 and 0.20.0.

As far as I can tell bitcoin core 0.21.0 had the consensus rules code for Taproot (all 3 BIPs) but not the activation code so it should ignore Taproot transactions by default even after it activates and block start containing Taproot transactions.
0.21.1 on the other hand added the activation code and should be able to detect the fact that Taproot is locked in and start verifying Taproot transactions when they are available.

Anything older than v0.21.0 (like 0.20.1 and 0.20.0) will consider Taproot a non-standard transaction and a "future witness version" and only performs basic verification on the transaction if it is in a mined block and will ignore and reject it if it comes to their mempool.

[cygan]

here are a few more articles about the upcoming BTC taproot hardfork upgrade

• The Taproot Bitcoin update is coming on November 16, 2021.
• Bitcoin’s blockchain will soon see many new features on its network.
• The Bitcoin community will soon be able to enjoy an influx of benefits

https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/big-news-is-coming-for-bitcoin-keep-watch-on-november-16-2659212

i'm curious to see if Edward Moya's theory is correct ... i hope not

The last time the Bitcoin network locked in a major upgrade, in July 2017, the bitcoin cryptocurrency’s price jumped almost 50% through Aug. 23, when the changes went live.

Now, as the original blockchain network prepares for its next big upgrade in November, known as Taproot, few investors are expecting a price reaction anywhere near that scale. BTC’s price has already doubled this year and hit a new all-time high near $67,000 last week. While further gains are possible, Taproot alone likely won’t be the catalyst.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/10/26/taproot-bitcoins-next-big-upgrade-might-already-be-priced-in/

[Wind_FURY]

here are a few more articles about the upcoming BTC taproot hardfork upgrade

• The Taproot Bitcoin update is coming on November 16, 2021.
• Bitcoin’s blockchain will soon see many new features on its network.
• The Bitcoin community will soon be able to enjoy an influx of benefits

https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/big-news-is-coming-for-bitcoin-keep-watch-on-november-16-2659212

i'm curious to see if Edward Moya's theory is correct ... i hope not

The last time the Bitcoin network locked in a major upgrade, in July 2017, the bitcoin cryptocurrency’s price jumped almost 50% through Aug. 23, when the changes went live.

Now, as the original blockchain network prepares for its next big upgrade in November, known as Taproot, few investors are expecting a price reaction anywhere near that scale. BTC’s price has already doubled this year and hit a new all-time high near $67,000 last week. While further gains are possible, Taproot alone likely won’t be the catalyst.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/10/26/taproot-bitcoins-next-big-upgrade-might-already-be-priced-in/

It’s probably priced in by now, but I said the same about the halving last year and it showed my “plebness”.

I believe, after that experience, we should just agree with history. Bitcoin will continue to surge to new all time highs, six digits, like it did during 2013 to four digits, and 2017 to five digits.

[JayJuanGee]

here are a few more articles about the upcoming BTC taproot hardfork upgrade

• The Taproot Bitcoin update is coming on November 16, 2021.
• Bitcoin’s blockchain will soon see many new features on its network.
• The Bitcoin community will soon be able to enjoy an influx of benefits

https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/big-news-is-coming-for-bitcoin-keep-watch-on-november-16-2659212

i'm curious to see if Edward Moya's theory is correct ... i hope not

The last time the Bitcoin network locked in a major upgrade, in July 2017, the bitcoin cryptocurrency’s price jumped almost 50% through Aug. 23, when the changes went live.

Now, as the original blockchain network prepares for its next big upgrade in November, known as Taproot, few investors are expecting a price reaction anywhere near that scale. BTC’s price has already doubled this year and hit a new all-time high near $67,000 last week. While further gains are possible, Taproot alone likely won’t be the catalyst.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/10/26/taproot-bitcoins-next-big-upgrade-might-already-be-priced-in/

It’s probably priced in by now, but I said the same about the halving last year and it showed my “plebness”.

I believe, after that experience, we should just agree with history. Bitcoin will continue to surge to new all time highs, six digits, like it did during 2013 to four digits, and 2017 to five digits.

To me, it seems difficult to "price in" the various kinds of technological upgrades and even something as seemingly simple as the halvening because there is such a broad swath of both current bitcoin users and even future bitcoin users who hardly have any clues about the significance of such various dynamics on this particular asset class that is difficult to understand, even by more sophisticated investors and speculators who might have been presumed to have taken up some of the informational slack in terms of knowing the meanings of these various events. 

In other words, the market does not know enough to price in these aspects, and that seems to be part of the reason why we get some lagging UPpity price reactions in regards to when the effects of the halvening becomes felt (after rather than before knowing about it), and similar with various upgrades in terms of their expanding the various powers of bitcoin, but the market does not know enough and will find out as time passes...   

We do see plenty of examples why "priced in" assertions are difficult to assert with something like bitcoin that has so many developments happening simultaneously, so in that regard, some simpler concepts like the halvening, or the more complicated ones like the impact of segregated witness (including lightning network) or even the developments that taproot facilitates are difficult to frame in some kind of simple and understandable package that is even going to be knowable by the market - and probably we have to presume that there are folks who have much more insight (asymmetric information) than others and are able to advantage while the market is catching up. and some of the diptwats presuming "priced in" fail/refuse to account for how a multitude of aspects end up coming together causing the actual BTC value to be several multitudes (and probably magnitudes) higher than what the market had been pricing it... even while we have some folks like long term BTC HODLers and even more recent entrants like Michael Saylor who come into bitcoin and hoard coins because they both recognize the future value and  in the case of Saylor he even articulates why he is doing it (and the information that Saylor proclaims still does not sink in because the market - and several of the snooze you lose participants - remains in denial.. hahahahaha)

[dkbit98]

I know we are looking for exact block height for taproot activation not so much for exact time, but I see different predictions on taproot.watch website saying that we have eleven more days left.
Nicehash also released webpage for Taproot fork countdown that is scheduled to happen in less than ten days, somewhere around November 13th.
What would you say is more correct from this two predictions or is there even something better?

[Charles-Tim]

What would you say is more correct from this two predictions or is there even something better?

What matters most is the block height which is block 709632, the block Taproot will be activated.

According to Taproot watch, it remains 1587 blocks and the last block mined is 708045 which was five minutes ago.

708045 + 1587 = block 709632 which is most accurate.

Also Nicehash is indicating block 709632 for the activation.

Just like halving or any other block event, we can not use time to know the exact block height, but the more we are getting closer to the blcok, the more accurate we can guess the date such event will occur. As you know that block reward can be affected due to certain reasons like increasing or decreasing of mining hash rates which can alter the estimated time before mining difficulty is adjusted every 2016 blocks mined. So the reason time can not be used for the calculation but just for guesses.

[pooya87]

What would you say is more correct from this two predictions or is there even something better?

You can take the remaining number of blocks and divide it by 144 (24hours * 6 block/hour). Which is 1508/144 = 10.4 days. This is a rough estimation.

[cygan]

Real-world use cases are one of the main adoption drivers for every crypto ecosystem, which also holds true for the Bitcoin (BTC) network. In the next seven days, the Bitcoin protocol will undergo a soft fork in the name of the Taproot upgrade, which aims to improve the network’s privacy, efficiency and smart contracts capability.

and gmaxwell is also quoted once again in this article

I believe this construction will allow the largest possible anonymity set for fixed party smart contracts by making them look like the simplest possible payments. It accomplishes this without any overhead in the common case, invoking any sketchy or impractical techniques, requiring extra rounds of interaction between contract participants, and without requiring the durable storage of other data.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-soft-fork-days-away-as-taproot-upgrade-closes-in

[Dabs]

It would be safe not to do anything taproot related until after at least a day has passed since activation. It's usually the hours after any kind of fork where something wrong can occur, or some sort of re-org naturally happens, which may lead to loss of coins.

If you're not in a hurry, wait for new wallets or transactions to start happening before trying to do your own, it's not like previous hard forks where you have new coins on a different chain.

[pooya87]

If you're not in a hurry, wait for new wallets or transactions to start happening before trying to do your own, it's not like previous hard forks where you have new coins on a different chain.

Although not completely wrong but this is a very strange comment and for your information bitcoin only had 1 hard fork back in 2010 and roughly about 7 soft forks, I'm not aware of any serious chain splits during any of the soft forks.

I hope you are not thinking of forkcoins because they are not "hard forks" of bitcoin but instead they are "copies of bitcoin".

[cygan]

in this article, which was published by bitcoinmagazine.com, taproot is explained very well and, i think, made understandable for everyone

Much has been written about Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade, and plenty of resources exist to explain its technical concepts. However, in the author's opinion, a more comprehensive roundup of why Taproot is being implemented, what it will bring to the network, and what it might enable for the future, in plain English, is still lacking.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/short-bitcoin-taproot-explainer

and here is another taproot article...

Taproot is expected to:

• expand Bitcoin’s smart contract and scripting capabilities;
• improve privacy measures;
• reduce fees for Multi-Signature (multisig)/complex transactions: it will reduce the data needed for processing complex transactions, such as those involving multiple signatures or time-locking;
• enhance wallet functionality by letting developers set more complex conditions for wallets;
• improve privacy on the second layer solutions like the Lightning Network by making channels look like regular Bitcoin transactions if integrated into the Lightning implementations.

https://cryptonews.com/news/bitcoins-major-upgrade-taproot-set-for-activation-this-week.htm

[bytcoin]

After this update... will it still be possible to use LEGACY addresses normally? And also create raw transactions in the same way as we currently create?

[NotATether]

After this update... will it still be possible to use LEGACY addresses normally? And also create raw transactions in the same way as we currently create?

Of course you still can, because this is a soft fork, which means that existing consensus rules and protocol are preserved. It's only *adding* new functionality to it.

It's not like they can mandate everyone to use Taproot addresses anyway.

[Dabs]

After this update... will it still be possible to use LEGACY addresses normally? And also create raw transactions in the same way as we currently create?

Of course you still can, because this is a soft fork, which means that existing consensus rules and protocol are preserved. It's only *adding* new functionality to it.

It's not like they can mandate everyone to use Taproot addresses anyway.

These days, it does not make much sense to use Legacy addresses (1xxx...), even if you can. You should be using at least wrapped segwit legacy compatible addresses (3xxx...), but even better are the most recent segwit native addresses (bc1qxxx...)

[Charles-Tim]

These days, it does not make much sense to use Legacy addresses (1xxx...), even if you can. You should be using at least wrapped segwit legacy compatible addresses (3xxx...), but even better are the most recent segwit native addresses (bc1qxxx...)

Yes, it is good to use native segwit addresses because it has very low fee, 42% to 52% lower than legacy addresses, also still lower than while paying with nested segwit addresses, but that does not change the fact that the soft fork is backward compatible, which I believe is the best to make people decide which address type they prefer. Due to one reason or the other, some people still make use of legacy addresses, like a payment company that make it mandatory for payment, but to be sincere, I still do not know why people haven't make legacy the thing of the past.

[vjudeu]

I still do not know why people haven't make legacy the thing of the past.

There are still some reasons why legacy addresses are used. For example, signing a message with Segwit address can be done in different ways, but if you make a signature for legacy address, it will be the same for all clients. If you start Bitcoin Core and try to sign any message with Segwit address, you will get an error: "The entered address does not refer to a key. Please check the address and try again". Of course you can convert P2WPKH address to P2PKH, because the 160-bit hash is the same in both cases, but still, it is not implemented in Bitcoin Core and implemented in different ways in different wallets. Not to mention about script hashes, where nobody knows how to sign any message for that, also because scripts can be complex and not require any keys at all or require different keys in different cases. Another thing is signing messages with taproot addresses, where you cannot simply use taproot public key, because it could be unknown if all participants decided that spending by key should be disabled. In that case, signing messages with taproot addresses can be as hard as signing P2(W)SH.

[Charles-Tim]

---snipped---

This should be more of transaction and not message signing.

Well, I believe the people that are making use of Bitcoin Core (if true it can not sign a message with segwit address) can still make use of SPV wallet like Electrum for message signing, there are still many other SPV wallets that are able to sign and verify segwit address message. In this regard, no privacy invasion because an address that is only generated and not used (not introduced to the blockchain) can be used to sign a message.

What I think would be the reason is that many people do not even know the types of bitcoin address, no to talk of knowing the differences between them and how segwit (native segwit) has lower transaction fee. Also because some SPV wallets (which is obvious, the wallet most people are using) and exchanges are not supporting segwit, even the so called blockchain.com started to support segwit not quite long and few exchanges that are not yet supporting it(I don't know why people should be using such outdated wallets and exchanges)

The number of people using segwit address for transaction has now significantly increased, which has jumped now from around 60% the last time I checked in the beginning of his year to over 85%.

Just that it should have been 100% if other few wallets that have not supported it are supporting, this will even make ignorant people about it to still make use of segwit and take the advantage of lower fee.

[cygan]

the taproot countdown timer is slowly ticking down towards zero

Bitcoin soft fork is scheduled for block height 709632 which should happen somewhere in November 2021. Two proposals will be implemented, Taproot update and Schnorr signature update.

https://www.nicehash.com/countdown/btc-forking-2021-11-15-12-00

[misieeq]

Im looking for some information about taproot upgrade. I know it will increase privacy & reduce the transaction size for multi-signature wallets. But how does it apply to personally owned wallets with only 1 signature? Is there any data comparison if the transaction size after upgrade in this case could be bigger than before?

[Charles-Tim]

But how does it apply to personally owned wallets with only 1 signature? Is there any data comparison if the transaction size after upgrade in this case could be bigger than before?

To know more about pay-to-taproot (P2TR) transaction virtual size and how the transaction can look like, you can check this, it can be of help:

Pay-to-taproot (P2TR) transaction fee

One thing about P2TR is that all transactions (be it multisig, closing of lightning network, swapping and any other transaction that make use of taproot) can have the same fee as just as single public key wallet. So if taproot also support just a single key (but I don't know yet), the fee will still be the same. Only what can alter the fee are the inputs and outputs of a transaction.