Taproot
Also · Schnorr signatures · BIP340 · BIP341
Taproot is the 2021 Bitcoin upgrade that brought Schnorr signatures and a new script structure, making complex spends look like simple ones and cheaper to settle.
Taproot, activated in November 2021 at block 709,632, is the second version of SegWit witness programs. It combines 2 ideas. Schnorr signatures replace ECDSA with a scheme that is simpler and lets several keys be aggregated into 1. And a Taproot output can hide a tree of alternative spending scripts behind a single public key.
In the common case, parties agree and spend with 1 signature, and the chain shows an ordinary payment. Only in a dispute does a script branch get revealed. This is what makes multisig, Lightning channels, Ark trees and BitVM constructions both cheaper and harder to tell apart. Taproot addresses start with bc1p.
In French · Taproot
