16 November 2021, the most important date in bitcoin’s history
11th October 2021 |
Etch this date into your calendar.
Add it to your Google calendar, your Outlook calendar, your personal diary, your family noticeboard, whatever it is that you record dates of things on.
It is an important date.
An important date for crypto, for bitcoin, for the potential future of your wealth.
When it comes to markets, nothing is ever certain.
You cannot predict and guarantee the price movements of an asset. You can never guarantee the outcome of a vote, of a meeting, even of a deal that a company might have already announced.
Nothing is 100% certain.
That is, until something is 100% certain.
When it comes to bitcoin there are certainties that we know will happen. We know they will happen because they must happen, they are a central part of bitcoin’s code.
For example, we know that every 210,000 blocks, the bitcoin block reward will halve.
It did it at block height 210,000 when the BTC reward dropped from 50 BTC to 25 BTC.
We know that at block height 840,000 the block reward will go from its current 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. We don’t know the exact date of that yet (we will, however, when we are closer to it). We know it’s likely to occur between February and August 2024. But we do know 100% it will happen.
Likewise we 100% know, we can guarantee, that on 16 November (or hours within 16 November) there will be another certainty that will take bitcoin’s blockchain to a new level.
In fact it’s been said this bitcoin certainty will, “be the key element that would propel [bitcoin] into mainstream finance.”
So, what is this certainty? And importantly, why should you care?
Just getting a better house
On 16 November, an upgrade is coming to bitcoin’s network that is going to unlock a couple of key improvements to the whole network.
This isn’t like getting a new set of wheels for the car or adding an extension to the house. This is like just getting a brand new, better supercar and getting an entirely upgraded and better home.
The proposal to implement these Taproot improvements has already passed. The bitcoin network has reached a consensus and it is locked in 100% that the upgrade will happen.
In fact, we know exactly when the upgrade will happen too.
At block height 709,632 Taproot will activate. We’re close enough to know with some certainty it will take place on 16 November. The precise time is hard to lock down, but the block height we know for fact.
And it’s this certainty that leads us to the conclusion that now is the time to really set your stake in the key areas that it’s going to unlock.
On Thursday this week I’m going to give you exclusive access to a broadcast we’ve rushed to get out to you explaining exactly why you need to take notice of Taproot and what it could unlock in the crypto market.
In the broadcast my friend and colleague Boaz Shoshan and I dig deeper into what Taproot’s upgrade is going to bring to the bitcoin network and two key areas which it’s going to change how we view money forever.
Beyond that, we take a close look at how these two key parts of the upgrade not only could see bitcoin lift off again, but how smaller, specific crypto targeting these areas are also primed for lift-off.
The Taproot upgrade is one of those events that the mainstream media will probably not cover at all. They’ll be far too occupied with things like bitcoin’s price and how it’s now edging closer to $60,000 again and near bitcoin’s previous all-time highs.
They get side-tracked with all this talk about regulation, is bitcoin money, currency, a security… everything that’s not important to bitcoin and the wider crypto ecosystem.
The debate on what bitcoin is, is something that we were having years ago. The mainstream is so stuck on price and irrelevant traditional finance (TradFi) thinking they’re already years behind where the wider crypto ecosystem is.
In fact, I spent all of last Thursday and Friday at Token2049 – a crypto conference in central London. And the overwhelming understanding amongst those of us actually on the inside of this industry is the mainstream are lightyears behind where we actually are.
That’s good for people like you, because it puts you lightyears ahead of the average punter that still knows nothing more than just bitcoin.
We’re already started to introduce you to crypto and to ideas outside of the TradFi thinking, ideas around staking, DeFi, play-as-you-earn gaming… all these things put you ahead of the game.
That’s the kind of thinking you need to be successful in crypto markets.
And that’s why you need to get your thinking right and get yourself positioned right leading into the Taproot upgrade.
Coincidence or pattern?
The Taproot update isn’t the first time we’ve seen an upgrade like this hit bitcoin’s network.
In fact not long after the 2016 bitcoin halving, which reduced the block reward from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC, there was a proposal to address issues with bitcoin’s block size.
SegWit (segregated witness) would do away with signature data from transactions, enabling more transactions and improving transaction speed in blocks. It would also unlock layer-2 applications, like the Lightning Network, down the track.
SegWit2x was an alternative proposal that also wanted to increase the block size by 2MB. These upgrade proposals were hotly debated. They even led to a “civil war” in which the network couldn’t get a consensus on how to move forward.
This ended up in a hard fork of bitcoin’s network, which resulted in the creation of Bitcoin Cash. This is because one part of the developer community felt like bitcoin was more a “digital gold” a store of value, the others (SegWit2x) believed it was more a transactional currency and the 2x upgrade would enable that.
We now have both. But while some suggested these kinds of forks and proposals were bad for the network, quite the opposite…
The SegWit civil war actually ended up as a positive. This was because it unlocked bitcoin’s value in a way that not many predicted (we did though).
Back then the upgrade was all about speed, transactions and efficiency.
This time, with Taproot, things are a little different.
The entire network for one, agrees. That means there’s no civil war, no contentious hard fork. The upgrade has already been approved and it is 100% locked in for block height 709,632 (16 November at this stage, as noted above).
Also, there are two other key elements to Taproot’s upgrade and this is where I believe you need to ensure your focus is once the upgrade is activated.
You see, after SegWit, there was a renewed focus on blockchains where speed, transaction capacity and efficiency were major focus points. And it led some to astronomical gains.
This time around, there are two key upgrade elements to Taproot. However, it’s the smaller cryptos that are focusing on these two key elements where we see the astronomical gains coming from.
That’s what we’re going to cover in Thursday’s broadcast with Boaz and myself, and that’s why I don’t want you to miss it.
Crypto to Know
Below is our “Crypto to Know” list where you’ll find several cryptos that we think you should be taking the time to learn and understand.
They each form an important part of the burgeoning crypto ecosystem.
Several of these cryptos are doing very different things to others.
What’s key is to learn that every crypto has its own use cases, its own guiding principles, and its own particular potential.
Each crypto is to be judged and assessed on its own merits.
Our aim here is to help you understand these cryptos and the wider crypto world.
These aren’t specific recommendations but a guide to help you learn and build your confidence in operating in this space.
We will add more names to this list over time. However, if you’re new to the world of crypto, these are the names where we think you should start your education and learning.
We’ve also added links to each one.
The links are to what we believe, in each case, is the best resource for learning about that crypto.
“Crypto to Know” watchlist
- Bitcoin – bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page
- Ethereum – ethereum.org/en/what-is-ethereum
- IOTA – docs.iota.org
- Tezos – https://tezos.com/learn/getting-started/
- Uniswap & 1inch – uniswap.org/faq & help.1inch.exchange/en
- Filecoin – docs.filecoin.io
- Cosmos – v1.cosmos.network/intro
- Binance – binance.com/en/about & research.binance.com/en/projects/bnb
- FTX – ftx.com & help.ftx.com/hc/en-us
Sam Volkering
Editor, Sam Volkering’s Crypto Network
