Scheduled meeting to discuss Taproot activation

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #133

Michael Folkson announced that a meeting will be held at 19:00 UTC on February 2nd in the ##taproot-activation IRC channel on Freenode to discuss some desired revisions to BIP8. It has not yet been decided that BIP8 will actually be used for the activation, so alternative proposals may also be discussed during the meeting or at a subsequent meeting. Please see Folkson’s email for background information about taproot activation mechanisms and a proposed agenda for the meeting.

Bitcoin Core Usage Survey: Bitcoin Core developer Andrew Chow created a survey for users of Bitcoin Core. As explained in a blog post about the survey, answers will be used to help inform developers about what people use and want from the software. The survey will run until March 2nd.

https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2021/01/27/

Taproot is coming.
 

Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 was released

https://twitter.com/bitcoincoreorg/status/1349720304680054784

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-core-dev/2021-January/000097.html

New version 0.21.0 of the official Bitcoin client, we hope to see Taproot and Schnorr included soon, maybe the next update. It will undoubtedly be a great advance in scalability and privacy.

Notable changes 

P2P and network changes
Updated RPCs
New RPCs
Build System
Updated settings
Tools and Utilities
New settings

https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/0.21.0/

Bitcoin Core Wallet

 

If you are reading this article, you are sure that you have Bitcoin or Satoshis on your exchange, there is a maxim that you should not forget, keep your coins safe, which you will have seen many times on the network.
This phrase is well known among bitcoiners:

"Not your keys, not your Bitcoin"

What does this mean?
It is very easy, if your coins are in an exchange and it is compromised it is almost certain that you will lose your coins or have a lot of problems to recover them, but if you have them in your wallet they are always safe.
Having your coins in your wallet implies responsibility, you are your own bank.
The official Bitcoin wallet is the desktop wallet developed by Bitcoin Core.
There are other types of wallet such as hardware wallets or mobile wallets.

Always download the wallet from the official Bitcoin website.

- Don't forget to put a strong password in your wallet.
- Always keep an external backup of your wallet.dat