A Taproot activation mechanism called "Speedy Trial" has just started on the 1st of May. Its goal is to give miners an opportunity to coordinate a quick activation of the Taproot update.The gist of it is: miners are given a three months time period to signal for Taproot activation. Within those three months, there are six sub-phases (each consists of 2016 blocks, aka ~2 weeks). As soon as there are 90% of blocks signalling for Taproot within any of those six sub-phases, Taproot activation will be locked in. The actual new protocol rules will then be enforced starting from block height 709,632, which is expected to be mined in November.We are currently in the first second of those six sub-phases, and Taproot activation will not happen in this one, as miners need time to upgrade their equipment (this is expected, as the software update with Taproot activation mechanism was only released a few days ago). But already now (as of 22th of May) there is roughly ~95% of mining power that has updated and started signalling for Taproot in at least some of their blocks. Keep in mind that 90% of blocks within one difficulty adjustment period (we're currently in the second of six of those periods) need to be signalling. This likely will be achieved when the signalling pools switch from signalling in some of their blocks to signalling permanently.Currently it looks like Taproot will be locked in in the next difficulty period, which is starting on the 28th of May!You can watch the currently signalling blocks/mining pools here (stand: 28th May):https://bit.ly/3gVEonE signalling for Taproot:SlushPool (~3% mining power)AntPool (~18%)F2Pool (~18%)ViaBTC (~11%, signalling in some of their blocks)Huobi (~7%, signalling in some of their blocks)1THash (~5%, signalling in some of their blocks)Foundry (~4%)Poolin (~12%)BTC.com (~9%, signalling in some of their blocks)SBI Crypto (~1%)EMCDPool (~0.8%, signalling in some of their blocks)Binance (~6%)BTC.top (~4%, signalling in some of their blocks)TMSPool (~0.4%, signalling in some of their blocks)OKExPool (~1%, signalling in some of their blocks)WAYI:CN (~0.4%, signalling in some of ther blocks)SpiderPool (~0.2%)Sigmapool (~0.17%)Keep in mind, actual hashrate is always unknown and numbers above are an estimation only, based on observations of the recent blocks, which is always subject to variance.What is Taproot?SummaryIf you are a singlesig HODL-only Bitcoin user, Taproot will not affect you positively or negatively. Importantly: Taproot does no harm!If you use or intend to use multisig, Taproot will be a positive for you.If you transact onchain regularly using typical P2PKH/P2WPKH addresses, you get a minor reduction in feerates since multisig users will likely switch to Taproot to get smaller tx sizes, freeing up blockspace for yours.If you are using multiparticipant setups for special systems of trade, Taproot will be a positive for you. Remember: Lightning channels are multipartiicpiant setups for special systems of lightning-fast offchain trades!Source: Taproot - Why ActivateFurther reading:Explain Like I’m Not a Developer: Taproot PrivacyTaproot Is Coming: What It Is And How Will It Benefit BitcoinPodcast: Discussing Taproot Activation Through Speedy Trial (Aaron v Wirdum and Sjors Provoost)FAQ:ELI5 this please?There is an update to bitcoin's code, called Taproot. It is good for privacy and efficiency of some important usecases. The update itself (the code) is ready, now it needs to be activated on the network. The developers/users gave the miners three months time to coordinate this activation (the coordination through miners makes it a bit easier, if everyone cooperates).That three months time window started on the 1st of May, and this current thread is keeping track of the current activation status. Now we have to wait and see how cooperative the miners will be (most likely they will, but it's not a guarantee).If 90% is not reached by August, what then? Is Taproot dead?No, if miners are not cooperating, then another activation mechanism will be attempted (probably something similar to UASF in 2017), where full node maintainers simply say "from blockheight x Taproot will be enforced and non-compliant blocks will be rejected", or something similar. The "speedy trial" mechanism was just the least contentious/the fastest one. If it doesn't work, we move on to another mechanism.If you are running a node - do you need to take any action now?You don't need to, but you could upgrade your client to 0.21.1, which has Taproot activation code included: https://bit.ly/3eMaHE5 is a soft fork, which means it is backwards compatible. Non-updated nodes will be able to stay on the network (and upgrade at their leisure at some point or not), but they won't be able to "understand" what Taproot is (afaik they'll see Taproot transactions as "anyone can spend" transactions, which are still fully valid by the bitcoin rules).Will Taproot/Schnorr be helpful for singlesig transactions with multiple inputs/outputs (f.ex coinjoins)?No, at least not for now (although any user benefits slightly from reduced fee pressure overall). For those something called "cross-input signature aggregation" is needed. Excellent deep dive: Taproot, CoinJoins, and Cross-Input Signature AggregationHow can I check on my own full node how many peers with Taproot compatible nodes are connected to me?This command will show you your peers' client version: bitcoin-cli getpeerinfo | grep '.subver' | sort -nk2r | uniq -cHow can I check on my own full node how many blocks are signalling Taproot in the current activation period?The following command line prints the number of blocks in the current retarget period, the number of those blocks which have signaled, and whether it’s possible for taproot to activate in this period (assuming there’s no reorg):bitcoin-cli getblockchaininfo \| jq '.softforks.taproot.bip9.statistics | .elapsed,.count,.possible'(Source)Additions (more helpful links, questions, improvements etc) welcome! Please post them in comments :) via /r/Bitcoin https://bit.ly/3b1cnqN
