Matt Corallo of Square Crypto, and long time bitcoin developer (now more focused on lightning) joins me on the show to talk about Taproot Activation, as well as review some of the history and nuance of prior soft forks in Bitcoin. We discuss:

What is a fork
What are the benefits of Taproot
How the events of 2017 played out
Dynamics of soft forks
Taproot activation paths
Flag day vs forced signalling UASF style
LDK - Lightning Dev Kit

Links:

Twitter: @thebluematt
Lightning Dev Kit: LightningDevKit.org

Taproot links:

Article: Understanding LOT=true or LOT=false by Aaron van Wirdum
Article: Taproot Activation and the LOT Debate by Ben Kaufman
Site: TaprootActivation.com (Mining Pool consensus effort by Alejandro from Poolin)
Mailing list post: Summary of Taproot activation meeting on IRC 2/2/2021 by Michael Folkson

Relevant prior episodes:

SLP137 AJ Towns – Schnorr Taproot Tapscript BIPs
SLP222 Jonas Nick and Tim Ruffing What’s MuSig2? What Does it Mean for Bitcoin Multisig?

Sponsors:

Stephan Livera links:

SLP257 Matt Corallo - Bitcoin Soft Fork Activation, Taproot, and Playing Chicken

Stephan Livera Podcast