Taproot activation proposal 202102

Expected timeline:

• 2021 March 17-31: Full node software released with Taproot activation deployment.
• 2021 July 23: Economic majority has upgraded. Miner signalling begins to indicate preparedness to protect the economic minority who haven’t upgraded yet.
• 2 weeks after 90% of hashrate signals: Taproot activates. Economic majority enforces, while miners protect the economic minority until they upgrade as well.
• 2022 August 1: Entire economy has upgraded.

For explanations of the various parameters, see BIP 8.

• name=taproot
  • Rationale: Already used in Bitcoin Core (for Signet and tests), no reason to change (BIP8’s “bipN” recommendation not applicable due to 2 Taproot BIPs)

• bit=2
  • Rationale: Already used in Bitcoin Core (for tests), no reason to change
  • Note: Bit 2 is unaffected by ongoing miner ASICBoost false-bit-spam.

• startheight=693504 (~2021 July 23rd)
  • Rationale 1:
    • Earliest activation (MASF) takes 4 weeks, coinciding with Bitcoin Core 0.20 Maintenance End. Therefore, a backport of Taproot to 0.20 (complex and would need validation) can be avoided.
  • Rationale 2:
    • ~26 weeks (6.5 months) between meeting and earliest activation.
    • 1.5 months to prepare and release activation + 5 months for the economic majority to upgrade.

• timeoutheight=745920 (~2022 July 22nd / 1 year after signalling begins)
  • Rationale:
    • Plenty of time and community support.
    • Remaining economic minority can be expected to upgrade within a year.

• lockinontime= NO CONSENSUS WAS REACHED

• threshold=1815 (90%)
  • Rationale 1:
    • High enough to ensure the Taproot chain always has a lead ahead of any invalid chains.
  • Rationale 2:
    • Low enough to avoid a sudden malicious stall of activation by rented or unknown miners.
    • 90% of hashrate has already committed to work toward Taproot activation.

lockinontimeout preferences

This table summarizes wether each person is fine with setting lockinontimeout to true or false.

This only concerns the first deployment, those in favor of a true should a first attempt to activate with false fail are counted as false here.

Some may be fine with both choices.

Nickname	LOT=true	LOT=false
belcher	X	X
benthecarman	X	X
waxwing	X	X
hsjoberg	X
fjahr		X
devrandom	X	X
darosior		X
andrewtoth		X
luke-jr	X
enzy	X	X
viaj3ro	X	X
achow101		X
virtu		X
proofofkeags	X	X
nickler		X
satosaurian	X
eeb77f7f26eee	X
gg34	X	X
harding		X
jonatack		X
pox	X	X
Billy	X	X
evankaloudis	X	X
virtu		X
criley	X	X
prayank	X
debit		X
Murch		X
ghost43		X
TOTALS	17	24