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After branching off for a major version release of Bitcoin Core, use this template to create the initial release notes draft.

The release notes draft is a temporary file that can be added to by anyone. See /doc/developer-notes.md#release-notes for the process.

Create the draft, named "version Release Notes Draft" (e.g. "0.20.0 Release Notes Draft"), as a collaborative wiki in:

https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoin-devwiki/wiki/

Before the final release, move the notes back to this git repository.

version Release Notes Draft

Bitcoin Core version version is now available from:

https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-*version*/

This release includes new features, various bug fixes 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).

Upgrading directly from a version of Bitcoin Core that has reached its EOL is possible, but it might take some time if the datadir needs to be migrated. Old wallet versions of Bitcoin Core are generally supported.

Compatibility

Bitcoin Core is supported and extensively tested on operating systems using the Linux kernel, macOS 10.12+, and Windows 7 and newer. It is not recommended to use Bitcoin Core on unsupported systems.

Bitcoin Core should also work on most other Unix-like systems but is not as frequently tested on them.

From Bitcoin Core 0.20.0 onwards, macOS versions earlier than 10.12 are no longer supported. Additionally, Bitcoin Core does not yet change appearance when macOS "dark mode" is activated.

In addition to previously supported CPU platforms, this release's pre-compiled distribution provides binaries for the RISC-V platform.

Notable changes

Build System

  • OpenSSL is no longer used by Bitcoin Core. The last usage of the library was removed in #17265.

  • glibc 2.17 or greater is now required to run the release binaries. This retains compatibility with RHEL 7, CentOS 7, Debian 8 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Further details can be found in #17538.

New RPCs

New settings

  • RPC Whitelist system. It can give certain RPC users permissions to only some RPC calls. It can be set with two command line arguments (rpcwhitelist and rpcwhitelistdefault). (#12763)

Updated settings

Updated RPCs

Note: some low-level RPC changes mainly useful for testing are described in the Low-level Changes section below.

GUI changes

  • The "Start Bitcoin Core on system login" option has been removed on macOS.

Wallet

  • The wallet now by default uses bech32 addresses when using RPC, and creates native segwit change outputs.
  • The way that output trust was computed has been fixed in #16766, which impacts confirmed/unconfirmed balance status and coin selection.

Low-level changes

Tests

  • It is now an error to use an unqualified walletdir=path setting in the config file if running on testnet or regtest networks. The setting now needs to be qualified as chain.walletdir=path or placed in the appropriate [chain] section. (#17447)

  • -fallbackfee was 0 (disabled) by default for the main chain, but 0.0002 by default for the test chains. Now it is 0 by default for all chains. Testnet and regtest users will have to add fallbackfee=0.0002 to their configuration if they weren't setting it and they want it to keep working like before. (#16524)

Credits

Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:

As well as to everyone that helped with translations on Transifex.