Bitcoin Gets Two Major Improvements In Latest Code Update

Bitcoin gets two major improvements in the latest historic code update as a part of the two proposals that were merged into Bitcoin Core and will be activated at a later date so let’s read more in our latest bitcoin news.

The awaited Schnorr and Taproot proposals were implemented to the bitcoin core earlier today according to the commit history available on the open-source platform GitHub so when it is activated, they will bring about better transactional capabilities to BTC while increasing the privacy features of the network. The update’s pull request invites Bitcoin developers to review codes before they are fully released and this was first posted in September by Bitcoin developer Pieter Wuille. Since then, it has undergone a month of testing as the Taproot proposal alone saw about 150 developers reviewing the code. Schnorr signatures formally the BTC Improvement Proposals 340 and 341 are two of the biggest changes to BTC since the start of the Segregated Witness. This was an implementation which increased Bitcoin’s blocksize in 2017 while Schnorr is based on the Segwit mechanism.

Merged PR from Pieter Wuille: Implement BIP 340-342 validation (Schnorr/taproot/tapscript) https://t.co/qAHYmWrv4Q

— Bitcoin Merges (@BitcoinMerges) October 15, 2020

The activation mechanism for the BIPs was not decided yet and depending on the mechanism, it could take some time before the code gets activated. Schnorr is an alternative to Bitcoin’s multi-sig wallet mechanism which as the name suggested, uses multiple private keys to facilitate the transaction from the BTC Wallet. The Schnorr update combined multiple keys to a single key when a user transacts using Schnorr. This reduced the data size of multisig payments and also helps in decongesting the network.

As bitcoin gets two major improvements, Taproot takes Schnorr by introducing a new transaction output version and new ways for users to define conditions for when they spend BTC with one advantage that of even allowing users under very certain conditions to regain access to their lost coins which improves the flexibility of Bitcoin as a monetary network. the features of the Taproot and Schnorr are helpful for users with complex spending policies that typically control huge funds such as crypto exchanges. The BTC network undergoes such big changes but this shows that the network is slowly but it is still innovating.