Funny Name or Not, Schnorr Is Becoming a Big Deal for Bitcoin

"To the moon!"

While this cryptocurrency rallying cry is typically used as the price of a coin starts a climb, this time the slogan's being used to demonstrate excitement over the progress that's being made on a long-anticipated bitcoin code optimization.

Called Schnorr signatures, the technology looks to replace bitcoin's existing signature scheme with one that mashes signature data together. The concept is so attractive partly because it clears up space in the blockchain, which should help resolve both the transaction backlog and high fees bitcoin users sometimes need to deal with.

According to developers working on the technology, the change would lead to an estimated 25 percent to 30 percent boost in bitcoin's transaction capacity.