The well-known Bitcoin developer and consultant, Giacomo Zucco, offered a short interview where he pointed out the work that needs to be done in Bitcoin and Lightning to get the most out of Taproot, a scalability solution that is in the activation phase.

In the interview granted for the LNMarkets newsletter, a decentralized market that works on the Lightning network, Zucco commented that to see the privacy benefits and cost reduction that it promises Taproot, would have to make some changes in the Lightning standards that would make use of this scalability solution.

“Naturally, this This is easier said than done, because people will have to redesign the Lightning standards to make them expreasable as Taproot scripts. So it is not something that we will have automatically after activation. There will be a lot of work to be done in redesigning and developing the Lightning implementations, wallets, tools and everything else that is needed. ”

Giacomo Zucco, developer and consultant at Bitcoin

Currently Taproot is in its initial activation stage, in what is known as speedy trial or rapid test , which we have reported in CriptoNoticias.

Giacomo Zucco points out that the main benefit for Lightning will be to be able to close and open channels with joint signatures (multi-signature or multi-sig) in a lighter and cheap, and these would be perceived as any traditional transaction of expensive to the network. However, he notes that this privacy advantage depends on how much Taproot is used. We have also reported this in CriptoNoticias, explaining how Taproot will be more private as it is used more.

“During the first phase, the opening and closing of Lightning channels with Taproot will stand out by themselves among all the transactions, because no one would be using Taproot in the beginning, so the anonymity set would be very small. But as its use increases, it will include both normal single-signature transactions on the main chain, as well as cooperative multi-signature transactions. Both types of transactions will look the same. ”

Giacomo Zucco, Bitcoin developer and consultant

Challenges of Discrete Registry Agreements (DLC)

Discrete Registry Contracts (DLC) are an implementation that enables the execution of contracts between parties on Lightning, using also, and as a novelty in Bitcoin, oracles.

“Oracle” is a term used to define the element that transmits information from the real world to a digital environment, or, in the case of blockchain networks, from outside the chain, to within the chain. In this way, contracts can be executed in which if a real world parameter is fulfilled or not, the contract is executed according to this data and the conditions agreed between the participants, automatically.

In this sense, Zucco stated that DLCs are already possible with the elliptic curve cryptography (ECDSA) used today in Bitcoin, but the cryptography of the Schnorr signatures, which the implementation of Taproot brings with it, could make these contracts more private and lightweight , as well.

However, what the DLCs need the most is a solid infrastructure of oracles, plus of an incentive mechanism and tools that allow interaction with them from the wallets.

The future of Lightning promises

To conclude, Giacomo Zucco comments that Currently Lightning wallets are not very practical to use, in that the user must handle the creation or routing of channels on this network.

The developer envisions a future where wallets can work automatically to discern between conducting Lightning transactions and transactions on the base chain. Also, use available channels or explore routes to make Lightning payments, or open new direct channels with the receiver. “This way, the network would improve without the need to create channels manually,” he says.

“I’m also expecting to see these logics interacting with other types of mainchain optimizations. How to get the wallet to choose the currencies (UTXO) that it wants to spend, with a privacy criterion related to the control of currencies and other things. There could be a privacy-oriented wallet that opens and closes Lightning channels with Payjoins, which would be very exciting, ”he said to close in reference to other desirable capabilities for Lightning and Bitcoin wallets.

Taproot prepares for a new activation attempt

We recently reported in CriptoNoticias that Taproot could not be activated during this difficult period. During this period, it was not possible to undermine in favor the 1,815 blocks that are needed to block (lock-in) the activation of Taproot, which would take place in November of this year.

The following period Bitcoin difficulty will begin approximately this May 12 . Starting at block 683,424, the next period of Bitcoin mining difficulty will begin, which could rise by 15% or close to 23.81 T, according to BTC.com.

Like Giacomo Zucco mentioned, there are several projects that should work a little more to get the full potential of Taproot, of which, in CriptoNoticias we made a count.