Schnorr and Taproot: scaling Bitcoin's base layer

Scaling Bitcoin’s base layer is incredibly difficult. In order to avoid breaking network consensus, the Bitcoin community strongly rejects any changes that are not backward compatible. Additionally, changes to Bitcoin cannot compromise the verifiability of the chain – a key component of Bitcoin’s social contract.

Schnorr signatures and Taproot are exciting in that they provide a means to improve Bitcoin’s scalability and privacy without requiring a hard fork or negatively affecting verifiability.