Even though bitcoin miners have signaled their support for the network’s Taproot upgrade since May, only a few pools have said they’re ready to support the payment output type added by the upgrade.
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- The Taproot softfork adds a Pay to Taproot (P2TR) output type.
- P2TR uses a type of segwit address format called Bech32m.
- Only two public pools have said they’ll support this format.
A page in the Bitcoin wiki tracks mining pools (along with wallets, exchanges, payment processors, etc.) that support or plan to support Bech32m payouts. Only SlushPool and SBI Crypto have publicly stated when they plan to add Bech32m support.
Foundry – a private pool – also said they’re ready to support Bech32m, according to a tweet from Kevin Zhang, the pool’s vice president.
What if pools don’t support Bech32m?
Because Taproot is an upgrade implemented via softfork, network participants who chose not to support the upgrade can still use the Bitcoin network as before. Pool payouts made via other output types will still be received and confirmed on the blockchain.
But some miners may want their pools to support Taproot payouts, and pools that don’t offer support might lose miners to pools that do. Also, pools that don’t support Bech32m cannot benefit from the efficiency and privacy upgrades of Taproot.
