Bitcoin Taproot Upgrade: Miner Support Confirmed - What You Need to Know

The new Bitcoin taproot upgrade will be implemented now that miners have signaled support.^[1][2]

In order for the upgrade to be adopted 90% of blocks mined had to signal their support over a certain number of blocks. That threshold has already been exceeded and it looks like the period will end with over 99% of blocks showing support.

Taproot, the most notable Bitcoin soft fork since Segregated Witness (SegWit) in 2017 which addressed block size and increased transaction speed, is an upgrade to Bitcoin that improves transaction speed and security in a few key ways:

1. It increases privacy by making multi-sig transactions indistinguishable from simple transactions.
2. It lowers fees by reducing the data needed to be mined in a block.
3. It adds a new type of signature that will enhance Bitcoin’s ability to use smart contracts like Ethereum.
4. It beefs us Lightning Network (LN), making LN transactions faster, cheaper, and more private.