Taproot, Bitcoin's long-in-the-making upgrade, achieves activation lock-in

Bitcoin is set to integrate the privacy-focused upgrade known as Taproot later this year.

As noted by Taproot.Watch, which has tracked the weeks-long effort to secure activation support among bitcoin's mining sector, a sufficient number of supportive blocks -- at least 1,815 -- was achieved on Friday. The signaling period, known as the "Speedy Trial," began last month.

The integration of Taproot represents the first major upgrade to Bitcoin's code since the introduction of Segregated Witness in 2017. The full activation of Taproot is set for network block 709,632, which is expected to occur sometime in mid-November. 

Taproot has long enjoyed support among bitcoin advocates for the privacy, security and efficiency gains afforded to the network. The code was technically merged with the wider Bitcoin Core codebase last year, as previously reported. Alongside Taproot is the introduction of Schnorr signatures, which enable users to encode spending policies in individual public keys.