The last weekend was marked by the start of one of the biggest updates to the Bitcoin network. Taproot entered its approval stage as of May 1st.
At this stage, miners must decide whether to support the implementation of Taproot or not. A website entitled Taproot Watch shows the progress of this signaling.
Miners vote on change
The signaling takes into account the period of adjustment of the difficulty in mining, that is, 2,016 blocks. The blocks marked in green are those that approved the implementation of Taproot, while the red blocks did not give approval.
Up to the time of writing this article, 335 blocks had manifested themselves. Of these, 52 signaled support for the proposal. To be implemented, Taproot needs the support of at least 90% of the miners.
If the approval does not occur, the update continues to be voted on for the next cycle. Miners will even have wax on Aug. 11 to signal support for implementation.
If 90% of the miners approve, the proposal moves to the implementation phase. The expectation is that, in this case, it will be implemented in block 709,632, expected to be mined in November.
Despite being at the beginning, the approval process must take place without great fright. This is because one of the largest mining pools has already begun to signal its support for the proposal, F2Pool.
Along with it, SlushPool also started signaling support for the proposal. Both account for about 23% of all computational power on the network.
Miners have already supported the measure
Taproot is considered the biggest change in Bitcoin since Segregated Witness (SegWit). Its implementation promises to offer new privacy features for Bitcoin.
It also promises to increase the scale of the network. As a result, the ability to process transactions tends to increase, lowering costs.
In January, Bitcoin 0341 Improvement Proposal (BIP 0341), which implements Taproot, gained majority support. About 95% of the network voted for BIP’s approval.
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