Taproot
The 2021 upgrade making complex Bitcoin spends look — and cost — like simple ones.
In plain words
Taproot upgraded Bitcoin's signatures to Schnorr and changed how spending conditions are revealed. A coin can carry elaborate rules — multiple signers, timelocks, fallback paths — yet when it is spent the ordinary way, the chain shows only one key and one signature. Unused conditions stay secret forever. Complex spends get cheaper; simple and complex become harder to tell apart, which is privacy for everyone. Activated November 2021 as a soft fork, with essentially no controversy.
Why it matters
- Privacy through uniformity: a vault and a simple payment can look identical.
- Cheaper multisig and smarter contracts, without telling the world.
- After the blocksize war, proof that upgrades can be calm.
Numbers that matter
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Updated 2026-07-30