The Taproot upgrade has reportedly taken a great stride towards activation, via hitting the 90% critical consensus for its Bitcoin mining nodes – meaning preparations are done for the November soft fork activation. 

Specifically, 90% of the Bitcoin (BTC) mining hash rate has reportedly been hit on the journey to activation, marking a new development during the ongoing difficult period. 

Insights inferred from Taproot.watch – a website formed by Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg – reportedly revealed that the lock-in stage is now finalized. 

Every recognized mining pool is reportedly anticipating getting the upgrade, with Slush Pool to be the first in line. This decision makes sense since Slush Pool also carried out the mining of block 687285, which sealed the Taproot lock-in.

AntPool and F2Pool – ranking 1st and 2nd in terms of hash rate share among the Bitcoin mining pool – are reportedly also included in the list of the earliest advocators of the Taproot activation, throughout the Bitcoin mining sphere. 

Bitcoin core developer Pieter Wuille reportedly offered his explanation to the development activation stage for Taproot, disclosing that per BIP341, when the lock-in occurred, automatic activation will be carried out at block height 709632 – which can happen somewhere near November 14th, 2021. 

“It’s the first consensus change since Segwit activated in august 2017. It extends Bitcoin’s script capabilities in ways that make certain things cheaper (especially more complex applications like multi-sig and layer 2 things), and somewhat more private by often hiding what the exact spending rules were.”

Per Wuille, the November activation will be just the initial phase, as the actual development will be designing the software, able to harness the perks the protocol enhancement offers.