For the first time in four years, miners around the world have approved a new upgrade for bitcoin. Crypto experts say that this is a big deal for the world’s most popular and first-ever cryptocurrency. This is because it is rare to have all investors and stakeholders in such harmony.
The approved upgrade which is expected to be launched in November is given the name Taproot. The upgrade brings with it increased transaction privacy and efficiency which is a great improvement.
Most importantly, it will enable the feature of smart contracts which eradicates the need for middlemen in even the most complex transactions. Smart contracts are a key feature of bitcoin’s blockchain technology.
Taproot is an upgrade that enjoys universal support as it provides changes that actually improve the Cryptocurrency’s code. This is very different from the upgrade that took effect in 2017 which was called the “last civil war”. This is because the upgrade was not agreed upon by a majority of the stakeholders which led to a divide between people with different ideologies.
The latest upgrade will provide increased privacy and security to people as it focuses mostly on digital signatures. These digital signatures can be viewed as a fingerprint of the users that they leave for every transaction that they make on cryptocurrencies.
At the moment, Bitcoin uses the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm. It makes sure that only the actual owner of the currency is spending the crypto by creating a private key. With Taproot, this digital signature technology will be switched over to Schnorr signatures which will make the transactions completely unreadable.
This will provide an increased sense of privacy and security as per the vice president of the Hong Kong-based major mining pool Poolin, Alejandro De La Torre.
This switch will enable the users to maintain a bit more of their privacy as it will essentially reduce your exposure on the chain. It will not change your bitcoin address on the blockchain which is available to the public. However, it will make the simple transactions much more indistinguishable from the more complex ones where you have to provide several signatures.
The release date of the upgrade is set for November of this year because the developers want to make several tests on it before it is made public.
