Taproot Spend Types

Daily average key-path against script-path spends. Which spends revealed a script and which revealed nothing

Short ranges plot one point per block, about one every ten minutes. Longer ranges plot one point per day, computed from every block in that day. How it is computed depends on the chart: some average, some total the day up, some are a ratio of the day's sums, and each chart says which. Either way a brief spike inside a day is smoothed away.

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Key factsCalculated from the points currently plotted, so they follow the range you pick. Zooming with the slider changes only what you see, not these.

over selected range

OverlaysExtra context drawn on top of the chart. Event markers are vertical lines at dated moments; a comparison series is a second set of numbers on its own axis at the right.

Event markers

Every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years, the block subsidy halves. Fees are the other part of what a miner collects and do not halve with it. Four halvings have happened so far.

A BIP is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal: a design document for a change to the protocol. These lines mark the dates that proposals such as SegWit and Taproot became active on the network.

Releases of Bitcoin Core, the software most nodes run. A release does not change consensus rules by itself, but it often changes what transactions a node will relay, which can show up in these charts.

Dated moments outside the protocol that moved the numbers: exchange failures, country-level bans, the first Ordinals inscriptions.

Comparison series

The BTC price in US dollars, drawn on its own axis on the right. Sampled every 4 days, which is all the source provides for the full history, so a range shorter than that cannot draw it. Price crosses six orders of magnitude, so it usually wants the logarithmic setting beside it.

The total size of the block chain on disk, growing as blocks are added. An archival node keeps every byte of it; a pruned one verifies the same blocks and then discards the old ones.

Compare with

one at a time: they share the right axis

RelatedCharts measuring the same thing or covering the same part of the network, for reading this one in context.

Ordinals Inscriptions Inscription Block Share Address Type Count Cumulative Adoption

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About this metric

Definition

Two ways to spend a Taproot output, and which one people use. A key-path spend shows a single signature and nothing else. A script-path spend reveals one branch of the script behind the output. Around nine in ten are key-path, which is what a working contract looks like when everyone cooperates rather than evidence of simple payments.

How it is measured

Key-path spends reveal a single signature and nothing else. That is the point of Taproot: a single signer, an aggregated multisignature and the cooperative close of a contract are indistinguishable on chain, because BIP 341 makes them the same shape.

So a high key-path share does not mean simple payments. It means most Taproot spenders took the path that reveals nothing, which is what a well-designed contract does when everyone cooperates.

Script-path spends reveal one branch of the script tree. That is not mainly a sign of cooperation breaking down: an inscription is revealed by a script-path spend, and inscriptions account for most of this band. A contract closing uncooperatively produces the same witness shape, and this chart classifies by shape alone, so it counts both in one band. The difference is on chain and is readable: a script-path spend reveals the script it used, and the inscription detector reads exactly that from the same witnesses. This chart simply does not subdivide the band. Ordinals Inscriptions, linked under Related, counts the inscription half over the same blocks.

Both counts come from classifying witness shape, so they are detector counts rather than verified totals.

Measured from my own Bitcoin node. Methodology