With Taproot achieving the 90% critical consensus mark among mining
nodes, all is now set for Bitcoin soft fork activation later in
November.
The Taproot upgrade has achieved the first significant milestone on the road to activation as 90% of the Bitcoin (BTC) mining hash rate signaled for the protocol improvement within the current difficulty epoch.
Data from Taproot.watch, a webpage created by Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg, shows the lock-in stage is now completed.
All recognized mining pools signaled for the upgrade with Slush Pool being the first to do so. It is perhaps fitting that Slush Pool also mined block 687285 that sealed the Taproot lock-in.
AntPool and F2Pool — the top two Bitcoin mining pools by hash rate share — were also among one of the earliest supporters of the Taproot activation in the BTC mining arena
In
a conversation with Cointelegraph Bitcoin core developer Pieter Wuille
explained the activation step for Taproot, stating: “According to
BIP341, once locked in, activation is automatic at block height 709632 -
expected around November 14, 2021.”
Wuille also commented on the significance of Taproot, adding:
“It's
the first consensus change since Segwit activated in august 2017. It
extends Bitcoin's script capabilities in ways that make certain things
cheaper (especially more complex applications like multisig and layer 2
things), and somewhat more private by often hiding what the exact
spending rules were.”
According to Wuille, the activation
in November is only the beginning as the real work will be building the
software to leverage the benefits of the protocol improvement.
June
12’s historic significance for Bitcoin has also moved beyond Taproot as
the day seen a record number of transactions mined in a single block.
Data from blockchain explorer Blockchair shows 4,075 transactions in block height 687249.
This
record figure is almost twice the average transactions per block
recorded on June 11 and is four times the typical transaction count for
Bitcoin blocks.
With hash rate declining amid mining restrictions in China,
Saturday’s transaction count average might be due to a slowdown in
block production forcing more transactions to be included in a single
block.
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-taproot-upgrade-finally-locked-in-activation-set-for-november
