5.1 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 10.8+, 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.
Notable changes
RPC changes
Low-level changes
- The
createrawtransaction
RPC will now accept an array or dictionary (kept for compatibility) for theoutputs
parameter. This means the order of transaction outputs can be specified by the client. - The
fundrawtransaction
RPC will reject the previously deprecatedreserveChangeKey
option. - Wallet
getnewaddress
andaddmultisigaddress
RPCaccount
named parameters have been renamed tolabel
with no change in behavior. - Wallet
getlabeladdress
,getreceivedbylabel
,listreceivedbylabel
, andsetlabel
RPCs have been added to replacegetaccountaddress
,getreceivedbyaccount
,listreceivedbyaccount
, andsetaccount
RPCs, which are now deprecated. There is no change in behavior between the new RPCs and deprecated RPCs. - Wallet
listreceivedbylabel
,listreceivedbyaccount
andlistunspent
RPCs addlabel
fields to returned JSON objects that previously only hadaccount
fields. sendmany
now shuffles outputs to improve privacy, so any previously expected behavior with regards to output ordering can no longer be relied upon.
External wallet files
The -wallet=<path>
option now accepts full paths instead of requiring wallets
to be located in the -walletdir directory.
Newly created wallet format
If -wallet=<path>
is specified with a path that does not exist, it will now
create a wallet directory at the specified location (containing a wallet.dat
data file, a db.log file, and database/log.?????????? files) instead of just
creating a data file at the path and storing log files in the parent
directory. This should make backing up wallets more straightforward than
before because the specified wallet path can just be directly archived without
having to look in the parent directory for transaction log files.
For backwards compatibility, wallet paths that are names of existing data files
in the -walletdir
directory will continue to be accepted and interpreted the
same as before.
Low-level RPC changes
- When bitcoin is not started with any
-wallet=<path>
options, the name of the default wallet returned bygetwalletinfo
andlistwallets
RPCs is now the empty string""
instead of"wallet.dat"
. If bitcoin is started with any-wallet=<path>
options, there is no change in behavior, and the name of any wallet is just its<path>
string.
Logging
- The log timestamp format is now ISO 8601 (e.g. "2018-02-28T12:34:56Z").
Miner block size removed
The -blockmaxsize
option for miners to limit their blocks' sizes was
deprecated in V0.15.1, and has now been removed. Miners should use the
-blockmaxweight
option if they want to limit the weight of their blocks'
weights.
Python Support
Support for Python 2 has been discontinued for all test files and tools.
Credits
Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:
As well as everyone that helped translating on Transifex.