BIP-86
Also: taproot path, single-key taproot
wallets · advanced
The derivation-path standard for single-key Taproot addresses — purpose 86', producing bc1p… bech32m addresses.
BIP-86 activated alongside Taproot in 2021. It defines m / 86' / 0' / account' / change / index for the simple single-key Taproot case: spend with a Schnorr signature, no script tree, no commitments.
The public key at the leaf is tweaked (per BIP-341) by hashing it with itself, producing the output key. That output key is wrapped in bech32m (BIP-350, the upgraded variant of bech32 that fixes the length-extension flaw the original had) to make a P2TR address starting with bc1p.
For wallets that don't need Taproot's script-path features — just a normal "send me sats" address — BIP-86 is the modern default. On-chain, single-key Taproot spends are indistinguishable from script-path Taproot spends, which is itself a small privacy win: every Taproot wallet looks the same at the transaction level. Reference: [github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0086.mediawiki](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0086.mediawiki).