Real-world use cases are one of the most important drivers for the acceptance of any crypto ecosystem, the same is true for the Bitcoin network (BTC). Over the next seven days, the Bitcoin protocol will go through a soft fork called the Taproot Upgrade, which aims to improve the privacy, efficiency, and smart contracting capabilities of the network.

Taproot is the first major upgrade to Bitcoin since August 2017, which saw the birth of Segregated Witness (SegWit) and led to the launch of the Lightning Network. While the previous fork was primarily aimed at improving transaction flexibility and improving Bitcoin’s network scalability, the Taproot upgrade is aimed at improving transaction efficiency, privacy, and support.

The Taproot upgrade is to be introduced after a consensus of 90% has been reached among Bitcoin miners (mining nodes). On the same day in June 2021, Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg tweeted the announcement:

WE’VE INCLUDED! #Bitcoin #Taproot

Videos from: @TheGuySwann! https://t.co/rCUp5VNCBX pic.twitter.com/YFLMTenWW0

– Hampus Sjöberg (@hampus_s) June 12, 2021

The Taproot Soft Fork will mark the birth of the Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree (MAST), which introduces a condition that enables the sender and recipient to jointly sign a payment transaction.

Additionally, Taproot will also implement Schnorr Signatures, an algorithm that allows users to combine multiple signatures into a single one for a single transaction, reducing the inherent difference between regular and multiple signature transactions.

Schnorr’s signature scheme can also be used to change a user’s private and public keys in a verifiable manner to confirm the legitimacy of each transaction. As originally suggested by Taproot on January 2018 by Gregory Maxwell:

“I believe this construction makes it possible to create the greatest possible anonymity for smart contracts with fixed parties by making them as easy as possible for payments. This is normally done without overhead, with sketchy or impractical techniques that require additional rounds of interaction between the contract participants and without long-term storage of other data. “

At the time of writing, Taproot.Watch, a website created by Sjöberg, shows that the Taproot upgrade will be activated on November 14th after 1020 blocks have been successfully minted.

Related: Bitcoin network token record high in daily payment volume

Just last month, the Bitcoin network’s daily billing value hit an all-time high after handling on-chain transactions valued at $ 31 billion.

Compared to early 2020, the network’s daily payment volume has increased 40 times, aided by the mainstream adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador and other jurisdictions.

Last week, the Bitcoin network transacted $ 31 billion in value in just one day.

This is an all-time high for a one-day billing value.

The global, decentralized payment system is becoming more and more dominant. (h / t @kerooke) pic.twitter.com/a6Q2FbPY3C

– Pomp (@APompliano) October 10, 2021

“[The Bitcoin network is] currently about $ 190,000 per second. Compare that to Visa’s $ 130,000 per second for US customers and $ 55,000 per second for Mastercard, “said on-chain analyst Willy Woo.