Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade is (basically) a shoe-in as Bitcoin stakeholders figure out the best way to bring it online. Digital signatures are created from the private keys that control bitcoin wallets and are required to approve transactions. Taproot addresses will use Schnorr signatures, rather than Bitcoin’s current signature algorithm, the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm, or ECDSA for short. In terms of data and processing, Schnorr signatures are smaller and faster than ECDSA signatures and also have the added benefit of being “linear,” which means Schnorr-based smart contracts can be optimized for ... (full story)