Taproot, one of the most significant upgrades awaiting the Bitcoin network, could be activated through a User Activated Soft Fork, or UASF, according to discussions among developers, miners and other network enthusiasts.
The Taproot upgrade is on its way to being finally approved by the network's miners for implementation within Bitcoin, now counting with the vote of 88% in favor of its activation. However, the way in which it will be activated seems to be undefined yet, although developers, miners and other network enthusiasts are proposing that it be through a User Activated Soft Fork (User Activated Soft-Fork), o UASF for its acronym in English.
In fact, in a recent conversation held on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel #taproot-activation and held on February 2nd, in which several Bitcoin developers and other enthusiasts in the crypto community participated, many of those who support the implementation of Taproot are in favor of using a UASF for this; although there are also those who believe that this is not the best way to do it.
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Over 88% of miners support Taproot activation
Support for Taproot activation via a UASF is because, as it is a soft fork, it will allow new changes to remain compatible with older versions of the Bitcoin software, allowing nodes to continue working in sync with each other, whether or not they are updated.
Developer Chris Belcher, which agrees with the activation of Taproot through UASF, also considers that with the high percentage of 88,5% of Bitcoin miners supporting the activation of this update, it is sufficient for its implementation on the network, and implementing a User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) to activate Taproot may not be necessary.
Likewise, Michael Folkson, also a Bitcoin contributor and developer, noted that it is much easier to quantify support from Bitcoin miners than from nodes connected to the network, so Taproot activation would be more convenient if it is run by miners, rather than nodes. Folkson emphasized that measuring node activation support is much more difficult than it is for miners.
In favor of BIP-8
After the public conversation, the consent of the participants in the meeting ended up supporting the BIP-8 to activate Taproot, including two pull requests. The first of these, the #1021, which will allow users to force Taproot activation if miners do not support it; and the second, the #1020, which only “recommends” the activation of Taproot without forcing miners to enable the upgrade by default. This request will set a time limit for miners to decide whether or not to activate Taproot.
Although most participants agreed with the activation of Taproot through BIP-8, the date for starting this activation is yet to be defined, and will be discussed further in future conversations.
Privacy for Bitcoin Users
Bitcoin (BTC) It is the first network blockchain created in the world, one of the main and most important that currently exist in the digital industry, and the first by market capitalization. However, among some of the problems that this technological innovation presents, there is privacy. Although at the beginning Bitcoin was considered a completely private network, the truth is that studies and analyses define it rather as a pseudo-anonymous network, which offers a certain degree of privacy and anonymity to users, without being absolute.
The very nature of blockchain technology, which offers transparency and immutability in the recording of data, is what gives Bitcoin its pseudo-anonymity. To improve this, the developer Greg Maxwell presented a proposal in 2018 focused on improving the privacy of Bitcoin, as well as its ability to create smart contracts complex. The proposal that Maxwell presented was Taproot, a technology that promises to improve the privacy of Bitcoin by preventing data within transactions made on the network from being revealed publicly.
If you want to keep up to date with the evolution of Taproot activation, you can visit this website where the acceptance status of the improvement is updated.
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