Bitcoin's Taproot Activation Signaling Begins Starting with SlushPool, F2Pool, and Foundry

Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade, a privacy and scalability improvement, has taken another step closer to becoming a reality. After the code for Taproot’s “Speedy trial,” an activation method was merged into Bitcoin core last month, Taproot signaling on Bitcoin officially began over the weekend with the second and largest downward difficulty adjustment of 12.6% of the year. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also tweeted the website “taproot.watch,” where you can check the support for the upgrade. BTC.com produced the first block since it began, but it failed to signal. However, soon others joined in, starting with SlushPool, which has been operating since 2010. SlushPool mined the first block signaling for Taproot, which was joined by Foundry, a US-based mining pool that is the subsidiary of Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group that also owns Grayscale. The latest Taproot signal is given by one of the largest bitcoin mining pools, F2Pool. Along with the signal, F2Pool also embedded the message “Of course I hate the Bitcoin success,” the words said by Charlie Munger and agreed by Warren Buffett over the weekend during the Q&A session at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting. Miners basically signal their support for the upgrade by including particular data in the block they mine. Once 90% of blocks are mined during the current difficulty period, between now and August 11, Taproot will be locked in for activation at the end of the year. Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr urged the miner to signal their support ahead of time, saying, “Even though you don't technically need to upgrade your Bitcoin node for Taproot until November, doing so sooner helps grow confidence in the activation.” Before the Bitcoin core software release, Bitcoin developer Bitcoin Mechanic released an alternative Taproot activation client. Called “user-activated soft fork” (UASF), it allows node operators to reject miners not signaling for Taproot and mandatory activate it in October 2022. The inclusion of UASF in Bitcoin Core was what led to months of debate. “Yes, there are differences in opinion. No, this does not resemble debates that have led to past network splits,” said Kraken editor Pete Rizzo referencing the SegWit upgrade in 2017 that led to the fork and creation of Bitcoin Cash (BCH). [coin_stats_table symbol="BCH"] There are currently 42 signaling blocks, and 84.92% of the blocks have yet to signal their support. As we reported, the majority of the miners (89.07%) had already announced their support as per the survey of Alejandro del la Torre, VP of mining pool Poolin. [deco-beg-single-coin-widget coin="BTC"]