With major Bitcoin (BTC) mining pools already signalling support, the road to the Taproot upgrade finally coming in 2021 is already underway
The road to the Taproot upgrade finally coming in 2021 is already underway, according to data from Taproot.watch, a webpage created by Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöber.
The earliest supporters of the Taproot activation in the mining arena were among others, AntPool and F2Pool — the two largest Bitcoin mining pools by hash rate. Also, AntPool and F2Pool — the two largest Bitcoin mining pools by hash rate are other pools that have been in support.
It is only if 90% of all mined blocks include an activation signal within a difficulty adjustment window (2,016 blocks), that Taproot activation will only go forward. The aforementioned is based on a consensus.
This consensus agreement must happen in one of the difficulty epochs between now and Aug. 11 to be locked in as a network upgrade for November. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the current difficulty period began on May 1 after a 12% downward adjustment.
As of publishing time, only 97 signalling blocks have emerged in the current window. Meanwhile, miners responsible for 382 blocks have elected to not include a “signal bit.”
The “no votes” by these miners, which account for 19% of the 2,016 blocks in the current difficulty window, means that the Taproot activation cannot be locked in until at least the next difficulty epoch.
However, given the reported support by miners for Taproot, the activation — touted to be the most significant for Bitcoin in over four years — is expected to proceed without as much controversy as the Segregated Witness saga of 2016 and 2017.