Author: Russell O'Connor 2021-03-06 14:44:44
Published on: 2021-03-06T14:44:44+00:00
A proposal called Speedy Trial has been suggested as a way to ensure the widespread adoption of new consensus rules without compromising safety. The activation method for Taproot involves either quickly succeeding or quickly failing, with a six-month delay between the time signal tracking starts and when nodes will begin enforcing taproot's rules. Miners are expected to signal support for taproot, and if most of them fail to upgrade by the activation date several months later, unprepared miners could lose large amounts of money, and users could see long reorgs.False signaling is possible with any other proposal, but Speedy Trial's short timeline may encourage it. However, false signaling is not required at any time. The proposal can be implemented on top of either Bitcoin Core's existing BIP9 code or its proposed BIP8 patchset. If Speedy Trial gains traction, Russell O'Connor has offered to work on a patch against BIP8 implementing it.During a recent IRC meeting, it was agreed upon that a threshold of 1,815/2,016 blocks (90%) in a single retarget period had near-universal support for the activation of Taproot. This proposal is detailed on the Bitcoin wiki page, and there are also several related links available for more information, including Github pull requests and past discussions.It is important to note that BIP9's times are based on the median of the past 11 blocks, which usually trails UTC by about 90 minutes but can trail behind real-time significantly if miners are doing unusual things. The activation of Taproot has been a topic of discussion since at least 2020, with previous proposals and discussions dating back to 2015 and 2016.A log from a recent Taproot activation discussion is also available for review.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T19:18:54.111068+00:00