Taproot is the Bitcoin scaling and privacy upgrade activated in November 2021.
The upgrade went live at block 709,632 on November 14, 2021. It was one of Bitcoin’s most significant protocol changes since Segregated Witness, combining several related Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, especially BIP340, BIP341, and BIP342.
Taproot introduced Schnorr signatures, a modern signature scheme that can make some multi-signature and complex transactions smaller and more private on the blockchain. It also expanded Bitcoin’s scripting capabilities through a structure called Tapscript.
Taproot does not make every Bitcoin transaction anonymous, and it does not automatically increase Bitcoin’s maximum supply. Its benefits depend on wallets and services adopting the new transaction formats. The name is sometimes confused with Schnorr, but Schnorr is one of the technologies included in the broader Taproot upgrade.