What Is Taproot? And What Do You Need to Know About It?

Muhammath Maushook — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 11:53:38 +0000

If you are in the blockchain space, you might notice the word Taproot getting mentioned a lot in the conversation last few days. If you are still not sure what TapRoot is? And Why Everyone is talking about them? Then This thread is for you.

August 24th, 2017 was the date Segregated Witness, or “SegWit,” upgrade that happened in Bitcoin blockchain, which addresses the scalability issue of Bitcoin. After its activation, Bitcoin’s price rose almost 50% in the following week. It was one of the most significant upgrades to fix the scalability issue, but also, there are a lot of problems that need to be addressed with bitcoin.

Some of them are privacy, scalability, and security: Introducing Gregory Maxwell , Bitcoin core developer. In January of 2018, Maxwell introduced the concept called Taproot, which addresses the concerns mentioned above.

Miners and developers widely supported this proposal, and they accepted the consensus to implement the upgrade on June 12th, 2021, and Taproot was activated on 2021-11-14 on block 709632.

jack⚡️

@jack

709632 🎇

05:16 AM - 14 Nov 2021

So now let’s take a deep look into what is Taproot?

Taproot is the new and most anticipated update in bitcoin, along with Schnorr signatures. Taproot’s goal is to improve privacy, scalability, and security by changing how bitcoin scripts operate. Schnorr signatures play a critical role in this upgrade.

There are three crucial improvements Proposals update encompasses

BIP340 (BIP – Schnorr)
BIP341 (BIP – Taproot)
BIP342 (BIP – Tapscript)

BIP340/ BIP – Schnorr

Schnorr signature technology implements the cryptographic signature, which is small, secure, and flexible. It also introduces the Key Aggregation technique, allowing multi-signature transactions and smart contracts to commit the same amount of data as the Single Transaction.

With this upgrade, rather than storing public keys and signatures of all the participants, only a single aggregated public key and signature will be stored, which results in lighter and more secure transactions.

BIP- Taproot/ BIP341

Remember SegWit? Taproot was built on it, which uses Merklized Alternative Script Trees, also known as MAST. Merkel trees are used in cryptography to verify the data without revealing all the data in the set. Like that, it only shows the conditions of the smart contracts that are executed and committed to the blockchain instead of releasing the entire agreement.

This provides a great deal of privacy to the users. With Taproot enabled, unexecuted transactions, conditions, or outcomes are unavailable for the spectator to see, which might have sensitive information.

With MAST, unexecuted transactions are no longer stored on the blockchain, which provides greater scalability, transaction throughput, and efficiency.

BIP342 (BIP – Tapscript)

Tapscript updates the script coding language used to write bitcoin parameters with Schnorr Signatures and Taproot technology. It also makes the implementation of future updates easier by allowing new transaction instructions.

How Taproot benefits Bitcoin Community?

As mentioned earlier, Bitcoin has some serious privacy, scalability, and security problems; this upgrade is to fix it.

Enhanced Privacy, Scalability, and Security with Key Aggregation and MAST
More Transaction
Lower Gas Fees
No Malleable Signature

I am sure this is just the beginning of growth; there is still a lot and more to go.

If you are interested in these topics and subjects related to the internet, consider following @muhamaushookar and subscribing to my newsletter.

What is a Web3 and Decenralized Network? Why is it important?

Muhammath Maushook — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 12:43:44 +0000

Netflix and Chill, Google it, Tweet are the few modern-day verbs we use today, but a few years we used to say, let's go to the movie, Search it, post it on the forum. With the growth of the internet, our lifestyle changed quite a lot. But how many of us are aware of how the internet has shaped itself in the last two decades? How many of us know about the version of the internet we use?

Let me take a moment to explain the different versions of the Web.

Web 1.0

It is the first stage of the internet, where most of the web pages are personal static web pages hosted on free hosting servers or ISP-provided servers.

The early stage of the internet is read-only, in which users can't interact with the web pages. Websites lack additional visuals, controls, etc., but hyperlinks connect web pages.

Web2.0

It is the current stage of the internet we are all using, and it is user-centered. Web 2.0 allows users to interact with web pages and create something of their own. Most of the content on Web 2.0 is user-created.

Web 2.0 has played a significant role in the growth of humanity in the last two decades. It is primarily because of sharing of knowledge. Anyone from anywhere can learn anything, most of the time for free.

But there is a problem with Web 2.0, and this is high time we address it.

Privacy
Censorship
Blocking Payments
Downtime and Data Security and so on

The current version of the internet is owned and managed by big corporations like Facebook Inc, Alphabet. We think we use their services for free, but we pay them with our data. As users, we have less or no control over our data(Changed in recent time but not sure how validated and trustworthy it is).

Moreover, all of our data and personal details are stored in a single centralized server, which increases the risk of security breaches. These internet companies have a lot of data about every one of us.

Netflix knows what kind of movie you like; Amazon knows what kind of things you buy, Spotify knows what kind of music you listen to, Google knows what you are curious about, Maps understand where you are going, Social Media sites see a lot, what are your views on certain things, how you look, who are your friends, Credit card companies knows, how much you earn and how much you can spend. They know all about you.

They stored it, with or without your permission, and eventually, they might sell it.

Other than Privacy- Censorship.

If you can silence a king, you are the king.

Over the world, many countries have stringent censorship policy; you can't talk wrong about government, you can't raise voice against state-sponsored violence, etc. They can delete your post or take down your network. All this is because of centralization.

And as you know, since all the currencies are state-owned, the establishment can stop or block any financial transaction to the organization they deemed a threat to themselves.

Internet is fantastic, and I love it, but things are getting out of our hands with our data and power to control the data we consume; it seems like web 2.0 is at our disadvantage.

Comes Web 3.0- Decentralized Internet.

Unlike its predecessor, Web 3.0 is Decentralized and gives power back to the people. Web 3.0 us no central authority to govern; users have complete control over their data.

In terms of computing, a Decentralized network distributes its workload among several machines instead of relying on a centralized server. Each server in the network acts as the central unit and interacts independently with other nodes.

Since all the server connected to the network has all the data, there is no need to trust single entity, and even if the central server in the system fails, other server nodes can take over and provide seamless service.

The origin of the decentralized system goes back to 1979. David Chaum introduced the concept of Mix network. In 1980, he applied for the patent to design the world's first decentralized payment system.

Blockchain Decentralization

BlockChain is the type of database in which the data are distributed in the decentralized network. In the blockchain, data are stored together in groups; it is called blocks.

Each blocks store set of information, and each block are connected with one other via datalink. Hence Blockchain. Blockchain enables peer-to-peer transactions of data without any intermediaries or central authorities.

Blockchain was first introduced as the distributed ledger for Bitcoin transactions in 2008. Today, blockchain has evolved beyond that. Nowadays, there are different types of blockchain for different kinds of purposes.

With the introduction to Web3, the way we use the internet will change rapidly.

Social media can't delete your accounts
Anyone can use the network who has access to the network
No one can block you
Payments are in Token, so no need for personal data or no one can payments
No Downtime because 1000s of computers back the system.

Even though, Web3 seems like a better future for the internet, the transaction from Web2 to Web3 will not be easy.

Awareness and education about Web3.
Cost - It is much costlier than centralized servers
Scalability - Since it is decentralized, the transaction might be slower.
Environmental Sustainability- energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining can lead to more carbon emissions.

In the Future edition, we will learn more about the technical aspect of blockchain and how it works beyond bitcoin.

Web3 Looks inevitable, with the rise of blockchain in the last few years and the craze for cryptocurrency among investors are boosting this change. So it is time to get educated.

I hope you find this first edition valuable and informative. If you have questions, feel free to tweet me on @muhamaushookar. Get the latest update by entering your email and signing up for a free weekly newsletter. Until next time, stay connected.

Disclaimer: Before investing your resources in anything, take your time to learn about it. Blockchain is a fantastic technology that can change the life of humans exponentially if used with good intent. Please don't fall into scams without knowing the risks in it.

DEV Community: Muhammath Maushook