2.9 KiB
(note: this is a temporary file, to be added-to by anybody, and moved to release-notes at release time)
Bitcoin Core version version is now available from:
https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-*version*/
This is a new major version release, including new features, various bugfixes and performance improvements, as well as updated translations.
Please report bugs using the issue tracker at GitHub:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
To receive security and update notifications, please subscribe to:
https://bitcoincore.org/en/list/announcements/join/
How to Upgrade
If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait until it has completely
shut down (which might take a few minutes for older versions), then run the
installer (on Windows) or just copy over /Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on Mac)
or bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (on Linux).
The first time you run version 0.15.0, your chainstate database will be converted to a new format, which will take anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour, depending on the speed of your machine.
Note that the block database format also changed in version 0.8.0 and there is no automatic upgrade code from before version 0.8 to version 0.15.0. Upgrading directly from 0.7.x and earlier without redownloading the blockchain is not supported. However, as usual, old wallet versions are still supported.
Downgrading warning
The chainstate database for this release is not compatible with previous
releases, so if you run 0.15 and then decide to switch back to any
older version, you will need to run the old release with the -reindex-chainstate
option to rebuild the chainstate data structures in the old format.
If your node has pruning enabled, this will entail re-downloading and processing the entire blockchain.
Compatibility
Bitcoin Core is extensively tested on multiple operating systems using the Linux kernel, macOS 10.10+, and Windows 7 and newer (Windows XP is not supported).
Bitcoin Core should also work on most other Unix-like systems but is not frequently tested on them.
From 0.17.0 onwards macOS <10.10 is no longer supported. 0.17.0 is built using Qt 5.9.x, which doesn't support versions of macOS older than 10.10.
Notable changes
Command line option changes
The -enablebip61 command line option (introduced in Bitcoin Core 0.17.0) is
used to toggle sending of BIP 61 reject messages. Reject messages have no use
case on the P2P network and are only logged for debugging by most network
nodes. The option will now by default be off for improved privacy and security
as well as reduced upload usage. The option can explicitly be turned on for
local-network debugging purposes.
Example item
Credits
Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:
As well as everyone that helped translating on Transifex.