Confused about ‘Technical’ Taproot?
What does it actually mean for the average Bitcoin user?
This research was sponsored by Luno Global, a platform that allows users to buy, save and manage cryptocurrencies.
On Nov, 14, 2021, Bitcoin was quietly upgraded in the first major change to the core code in over four years. This set of upgrades was known collectively as “Taproot,” and the “real word” definition provides us with a clue as to what might have been going on:
In other words, this is about strengthening the core “root” so that other “rootlets” can flourish.
It was, thankfully, a non-event, passing peacefully without incident when block 709,632 was mined by F2Pool.
Of course, if you’re a day-to-day user of Bitcoin rather than a developer, coder or general techie (as most of us are), even those few opening paragraphs may have raised more questions than they answered.
After all, it sounds terrifying.
There’s now trillions of dollars at stake, so why are they playing with Bitcoin’s code? Who are “they” anyway? Could it break? Do I have to do something different to…
