In mid-June, the ‘Speedy Trial’ lock-in period for the Bitcoin network upgrade Taproot locked in at block height 687,285 and was mined by the bitcoin mining pool Slushpool. Taproot is expected to go live on the network on Saturday, November 13, 2021, and the upgrade is considered one of the most significant changes the protocol has seen since Segregated Witness (Segwit) went live in 2017.
Bitcoin Upgrade Taproot Expected to Activate on Saturday
Taproot is expected to activate and go live on the main network on Saturday, November 13, 2021, following the lock-in period this past summer. Once activated, Taproot is expected to improve the scripting capability of the digital currency network and the ability to leverage Schnorr signatures (BIP340) will be available. Taproot is also expected to amplify bitcoin transactions by allowing certain types of complex, ‘smart’ transactions.
Schnorr signatures can help transactions scale because they are more compact than ECDSA. Schnorr can also allow key aggregation, which provides a slew of multi-signature transaction schemes. While Taproot (BIP341) creates new rules for a new type of Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) exit, the upgrade is a soft fork and is fully opt-in like its predecessor Segwit.
“Taproot is a proposed Bitcoin protocol upgrade that can be deployed as a forward-compatible soft fork,” the Github “Taproot-Activation” documentation notes. “By combining the Schnorr signing scheme with MAST (Merklized Alternative Script Tree) and a new scripting language called Tapscript, Taproot will extend the flexibility of Bitcoin’s smart contracts, while providing more privacy by allowing users to hide smart contracts. complex like a regular bitcoin transaction. “
Decentrader Market Analyst Expects ‘the Price to Rally up to the $85K – $90K Region in the Coming Weeks’ — Taproot Upgrade Could Also Be Priced In
Discussions concerning the Taproot upgrade are all over cryptocurrency forums and social media platforms during the last few days. Taproot’s long-awaited upgrade will officially launch at a block height of 709,632. The activation of this specific upgrade has caused people to speculate that BTC’s price may spike significantly higher after a successful soft fork.
On November 12, a Bitcoin Market Update blog post posted by decentrader.com indicates that market sentiment could trigger a rally after Taproot upgrade. Despite bitcoin’s (BTC) current volatility after the crypto asset tapped $69K, Decentrader explained the analysts are still “bullish” about BTC’s price rising higher. The market update states:
We remain bullish on high timeframes and continue to expect prices to move up to the $ 85,000- $ 90,000 region in the coming weeks, which matches the retracement level of 1.618 fib.
Overall, people believe that once the network gets improved scalability and fungibility, the upgrade could bring a new all-time high (ATH). The Bitpanda Pro Twitter account discussed Taproot today and noted that the upgrade comes at a very opportune time. “The Taproot upgrade comes at a very bullish time,” Bitpanda tweeted on Friday. “Both for the total crypto market, which recently surpassed a value of €2.6T for the first time, and for Bitcoin itself, which has hit new ATHs multiple times over the past few weeks.”
However, Bitpanda also admitted that the value of the upgrade may already be included in the price, and the recent ATH at $ 69,000 could have been the peak. “However, it appears that the bulls may still have some power left to push the price higher once the upgrade comes into effect,” Bitpanda added. “Taproot, after all, is here to make Bitcoin better, more efficient, and more private, all of which could justify a higher price,” the digital asset exchange concluded.
