About Taproot

[Blawpaw]

Hey guys,

it has been a while since I've heard about the Taproot upgrade. In my own understanding, taproot will enable a few new options (improvements) to the Bitcoin blockchain. One of these improvements will be smart contract ability. From my point of view, I see this as an important improvement that will add value to bitcoin. Even though this new capability may be kind of restricted, it will allow for tons of new applications to be built upon the BTC blockchain.

What kind of apps do you guys think Taproot will allow to be built on the BTC blockchain? I guess that new 2fa options can be built upon the BTC blockchain. Am I wrong?

[odolvlobo]

Taproot primarily allows for smaller and more private transactions, as well as a different signature scheme. There is no major extension of smart contract capabilities beyond that. I don't think that it enables anything new that isn't already possible.

Here is an explanation of the major features in Taproot: https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/what-is-the-taproot-bitcoin-update

[pooya87]

Smart contracts have always been possible on bitcoin chain, however certain functionalities have never and possibly will never be available in bitcoin (eg. loops/Turing complete). In other words if you are thinking the pointless token creation hype is coming to bitcoin with Taproot, you are mistaken.

I guess that new 2fa options can be built upon the BTC blockchain.

How would that even work on a transparent (everyone can see) blockchain?!

[mk4]

Regardless if we are(or will be) able to use smart contracts on the Bitcoin layer-1 chain, it's going to be a shitshow due to how much fees will be; just like how badly Ethereum is doing right now. If Bitcoin was to have smart contracts, it will be on layer-2s— like what Stacks and Sovryn is trying to do.

[OcTradism]

Taproot is very expected and the successful activation of Taproot will be a booster for Bitcoin.

In 2017, Segwit activation is the booster.
In 2021, I believe Taproot activation will be another technical booster for Bitcoin.

Taproot is coming. What it is & how it will benefit Bitcoin
Taproot and Schnorr: The Biggest BTC Upgrade for 2021

[Tytanowy Janusz]

In 2017, Segwit activation is the booster.
In 2021, I believe Taproot activation will be another technical booster for Bitcoin.

We were in different bubble stage back then in 2017, different volatility, different emotions but yes, we pushed hard. I copied 2017 price action 1.5 month before segwit activation. Thats how chart should look like now:


100k+ in dec 2021. By the way, take a look how it will perfectly dance around my "bubble support line" which I which I drew about 4 months ago when we were testing 30k.

[OcTradism]

We were in different bubble stage back then in 2017, different volatility, different emotions but yes, we pushed hard. I copied 2017 price action 1.5 month before segwit activation. Thats how chart should look like now:


100k+ in dec 2021. By the way, take a look how it will perfectly dance around my "bubble support line" which I which I drew about 4 months ago when we were testing 30k.

Thank you for the chart and the dance of history.

Bitcoin would not dance exactly as your chart shows in a few coming months but I am not doubtful that it will make a new all time high. It would be a waste of preparation from whales and developers for Taproot development and activation. 4 years, we have a halving event and a big upgrade. It won't make sense if Bitcoin simply test $64,000 for Taproot and won't make a new all time high.

New all time high would not be a few thousands above $64,000. If it is made, it would be x2 from $64,000.

[electronicash]

We were in different bubble stage back then in 2017, different volatility, different emotions but yes, we pushed hard. I copied 2017 price action 1.5 month before segwit activation. Thats how chart should look like now:


100k+ in dec 2021. By the way, take a look how it will perfectly dance around my "bubble support line" which I which I drew about 4 months ago when we were testing 30k.

Thank you for the chart and the dance of history.

Bitcoin would not dance exactly as your chart shows in a few coming months but I am not doubtful that it will make a new all time high. It would be a waste of preparation from whales and developers for Taproot development and activation. 4 years, we have a halving event and a big upgrade. It won't make sense if Bitcoin simply test $64,000 for Taproot and won't make a new all time high.

New all time high would not be a few thousands above $64,000. If it is made, it would be x2 from $64,000.

it's still going to be a big update for taproot improves features that the community will appreciate the most especially the investors for BTC privacy improvement and scalability. it's highly anticipated next month, probably more than $64k will happen maybe this December or early next year.

a representation in the video made everyone celebrate https://taproot.watch/

[OcTradism]

it's still going to be a big update for taproot improves features that the community will appreciate the most especially the investors for BTC privacy improvement and scalability. it's highly anticipated next month, probably more than $64k will happen maybe this December or early next year.

a representation in the video made everyone celebrate https://taproot.watch/

Technical upgrades are expected by community but sometimes such upgrades don't create instant effects on the network or users.

It takes years for Segwit to get big adoption and Lightning network needs more time than Segwit to be used popularly in Bitcoin communities.

Taproot upgrade is cool but I think it will go through a same roadway like Segwit or Lightning network.

Until now, there are people don't know what is Segwit and why they should use wallet with Segwit to save transaction fee.

[Hydrogen]

I need to read up on taproot more. I've been procrastinating on it for the longest time.

Last I heard taproot will replace BTC elliptic curve signatures with schnorr signatures. They claim this will increase bitcoin transaction throughput by 20% and improve the anonymity of single transactions sent to multiple addresses, where they say only the 1st recipient will be visible in the public ledger. It is supposed to go into effect around november of 2021.

Schnorr signatures were under patent until around 2008 when they became public domain. Some claim Satoshi would have used schnorr signatures instead of elliptic curve, had they been available when he began work on BTC.

I've been wondering if rumors that crypto ETFs in the united states will be approved in october of 2021 were related to taproots planned rollout in november of 2021.

If taproots rollout is delayed or canceled, I won't mind. Its a step towards bitcoin becoming more of a privacy coin -- which could give regulators more of an excuse to crack down on it. 20% increase in transaction speed amounts to negligible gains if theoretical maximum of on chain transactions is capped at 7 per second. 20% gains take that up to 8.4 per second. Lightning network already fulfills the role of faster transactions better.

[ranochigo]

Last I heard taproot will replace BTC elliptic curve signatures with schnorr signatures. They claim this will increase bitcoin transaction throughput by 20% and improve the anonymity of single transactions sent to multiple addresses, where they say only the 1st recipient will be visible in the public ledger.

This is not correct. Taproot does not replace ECDSA but it creates a new address type which utilizes Schnorr signatures. The privacy benefit comes from signature aggregation, where there is an aggregated public key and signature for a set of them in the case of Multisig and not all of the recipients have to be revealed.

IIRC, Taproot TXes are bigger than P2PWKH if you're not looking to use it with key aggregation.

[pooya87]

This is not correct. Taproot does not replace ECDSA but it creates a new address type which utilizes Schnorr signatures.

That's essentially the same thing, the old way is still intact while the new scripts (version 1 SegWit) use the Schnorr signature and drop ECDSA.

Last I heard taproot will replace BTC elliptic curve signatures with schnorr signatures. They claim this will increase bitcoin transaction throughput by 20%

Changing signature algorithm is not the main reason, the main reason (specially for regular single sig transactions) is dropping the encoding used by ECDSA.
The bigger size reduction is for multi-signature transactions since they will only need a single aggregated signature.

I've been wondering if rumors that crypto ETFs in the united states will be approved in october of 2021 were related to taproots planned rollout in november of 2021.

I don't think so. It is just US that has been resisting ETFs, while they exist elsewhere in the world.

If taproots rollout is delayed or canceled,

That would need a soft-fork because by current consensus Taproot is locked in and must be activated at the predesignated block height.

20% increase in transaction speed

Transaction speed is the same as it has ever was from day 1. I believe you mean transaction size decrease.
Also as I said above the size depends on the scripts, you first have to be using a Taproot script then the size different would depend on the type of it.

[DOH!]

Regardless if we are(or will be) able to use smart contracts on the Bitcoin layer-1 chain, it's going to be a shitshow due to how much fees will be; just like how badly Ethereum is doing right now. If Bitcoin was to have smart contracts, it will be on layer-2s— like what Stacks and Sovryn is trying to do.

Yes, I think Taproot will make bitcoin more complete for key transactions like transaction speed, transaction fees.  While privacy will be greatly enhanced, making bitcoin possibly a block of security at best.  As for smart contracts, I don't think that's going to happen, solving some problems on RSK - they are more defi for bitcoin improvements than the original bitcoin chain itself.  Bitcoin will not integrate shitcoins on it for smart contract execution is no exception

[DaveF]

There is a longish taproot discussion that has been going on for over 2 years here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5140134.0

One of the major things that will be better for most people is the fact that multisig transactions will be smaller so they will be less expensive to use.
Taproot (and schnorr) also makes complex scripting better in general.

As with many things, people at 1st may or many not see an immediate benefit, but as the BTC protocol improves people will find new and better ways to use it.

-Dave

[NotATether]

Taproot (and schnorr) also makes complex scripting better in general.

Programs to help you design complex scripts are yet to be made (with the exception of Coding Enthusiast's excellent GUI program he posted in Dev&Tech) so I don't see how people will be able to actually make use of this. Big organizations with private tools, sure, but what about the rest of the community?

[DaveF]

Taproot (and schnorr) also makes complex scripting better in general.

Programs to help you design complex scripts are yet to be made (with the exception of Coding Enthusiast's excellent GUI program he posted in Dev&Tech) so I don't see how people will be able to actually make use of this. Big organizations with private tools, sure, but what about the rest of the community?

In my opinion, it's a build it and they will come kind of thing. Once people can use it, and some DO use it, people will write code for it. And then you get people creating tools to help them do it.
And then the rest of us can use those tools.

It's not for everyone, nor does it have to be.
Some people like using an app on their phone to send and receive and generally use BTC.
Other people use a text terminal on their full node running on a Linux box.

If nothing else, the ability to open & close LN channels is a good thing for me.
You may or may not agree, but you might find something else that is good for you. Maybe you like 7 of 8 multisig for security.

-Dave