For Bitcoin owners and traders, the biggest news this holiday season has been about the Taproot soft fork upgrade. According to reports, almost 90% of Bitcoin miners have welcomed the Taproot soft fork upgrade with open hearts and minds. The upgrade has introduced a system called MAST (Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree). This would improve upon the privacy of the network as well as improve its scripting capabilities.
Why is this upgrade important?
Privacy has been a big concern among crypto miners as well as traders these days. This is because of the opposition that crypto is facing from various actors. Some of these actors are big governments who want to tap into crypto to line their own teeth in gold. Yet, that would defeat the very purpose of crypto-decentralization. In the designing of blockchains, it is nothing short of revolutionary innovation. Now, an all-in-one “Pay-to-Taproot” option will be introduced that will make the activities of Bitcoin users more seamless and safe.
What is a soft fork?
Many may wonder what a soft fork is. It is basically just a change in the software that would make previously valid transaction blocks invalid. It is a lot less work than a hard-fork in which all nodes are made invalid. It is necessary, however, to increase privacy and safety. Taproot’s soft fork upgrade is a 100-year soft fork. After the 2017 two-layers solution of Bitcoin, it is perhaps one of the most significant and bold upgrades. Of course, miners will have to upgrade their nodes, but most of them are in consensus in order to maintain the privacy of crypto. So, it’s not that big of a hindrance for them.
