Quote from: achow101 on December 06, 2023, 03:20:19 PM

26.0 Release Notes

Bitcoin Core version 26.0 is now available from:

https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-26.0/

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 in some cases), then run the
installer (on Windows) or just copy over /Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on macOS)
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 data directory 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 11.0+, and Windows 7 and newer. Bitcoin
Core should also work on most other Unix-like systems but is not as
frequently tested on them. It is not recommended to use Bitcoin Core on
unsupported systems.

Notable changes

P2P and network changes

Experimental support for the v2 transport protocol defined in
BIP324 was added.
It is off by default, but when enabled using -v2transport it will be negotiated
on a per-connection basis with other peers that support it too. The existing
v1 transport protocol remains fully supported.
Nodes with multiple reachable networks will actively try to have at least one
outbound connection to each network. This improves individual resistance to
eclipse attacks and network level resistance to partition attacks. Users no
longer need to perform active measures to ensure being connected to multiple
enabled networks. (#27213)

Pruning

When using assumeutxo with -prune, the prune budget may be exceeded if it is set
lower than 1100MB (i.e. MIN_DISK_SPACE_FOR_BLOCK_FILES * 2). Prune budget is normally
split evenly across each chainstate, unless the resulting prune budget per chainstate
is beneath MIN_DISK_SPACE_FOR_BLOCK_FILES in which case that value will be used. (#27596)

Updated RPCs

Setting -rpcserialversion=0 is deprecated and will be removed in
a future release. It can currently still be used by also adding
the -deprecatedrpc=serialversion option. (#28448)
The hash_serialized_2 value has been removed from gettxoutsetinfo since the value it
calculated contained a bug and did not take all data into account. It is superseded by
hash_serialized_3 which provides the same functionality but serves the correctly calculated hash. (#28685)
New fields transport_protocol_type and session_id were added to the getpeerinfo RPC to indicate
whether the v2 transport protocol is in use, and if so, what the session id is.
A new argument v2transport was added to the addnode RPC to indicate whether a v2 transaction connection
is to be attempted with the peer.
Miniscript expressions can now be used in Taproot descriptors for all RPCs working with descriptors. (#27255)
finalizepsbt is now able to finalize a PSBT with inputs spending Miniscript-compatible Taproot leaves. (#27255)

Changes to wallet related RPCs can be found in the Wallet section below.

New RPCs

loadtxoutset has been added, which allows loading a UTXO snapshot of the format
generated by dumptxoutset. Once this snapshot is loaded, its contents will be
deserialized into a second chainstate data structure, which is then used to sync to
the network's tip.

Meanwhile, the original chainstate will complete the initial block download process in
the background, eventually validating up to the block that the snapshot is based upon.

The result is a usable bitcoind instance that is current with the network tip in a
matter of minutes rather than hours. UTXO snapshot are typically obtained via
third-party sources (HTTP, torrent, etc.) which is reasonable since their contents
are always checked by hash.

You can find more information on this process in the assumeutxo design
document (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/design/assumeutxo.md).

getchainstates has been added to aid in monitoring the assumeutxo sync process.
A new getprioritisedtransactions RPC has been added. It returns a map of all fee deltas created by the
user with prioritisetransaction, indexed by txid. The map also indicates whether each transaction is
present in the mempool. (#27501)
A new RPC, submitpackage, has been added. It can be used to submit a list of raw hex
transactions to the mempool to be evaluated as a package using consensus and mempool policy rules.
These policies include package CPFP, allowing a child with high fees to bump a parent below the
mempool minimum feerate (but not minimum relay feerate). (#27609)
- Warning: successful submission does not mean the transactions will propagate throughout the
  network, as package relay is not supported.
- Not all features are available. The package is limited to a child with all of its
  unconfirmed parents, and no parent may spend the output of another parent. Also, package
  RBF is not supported. Refer to doc/policy/packages.md for more details on package policies
  and limitations.
- This RPC is experimental. Its interface may change.
A new RPC getaddrmaninfo has been added to view the distribution of addresses in the new and tried table of the
node's address manager across different networks(ipv4, ipv6, onion, i2p, cjdns). The RPC returns count of addresses
in new and tried table as well as their sum for all networks. (#27511)
A new importmempool RPC has been added. It loads a valid mempool.dat file and attempts to
add its contents to the mempool. This can be useful to import mempool data from another node
without having to modify the datadir contents and without having to restart the node. (#27460)
- Warning: Importing untrusted files is dangerous, especially if metadata from the file is taken over.
- If you want to apply fee deltas, it is recommended to use the getprioritisedtransactions and
  prioritisetransaction RPCs instead of the apply_fee_delta_priority option to avoid
  double-prioritising any already-prioritised transactions in the mempool.

Updated settings

bitcoind and bitcoin-qt will now raise an error on startup
if a datadir that is being used contains a bitcoin.conf file that
will be ignored, which can happen when a datadir= line is used in
a bitcoin.conf file. The error message is just a diagnostic intended
to prevent accidental misconfiguration, and it can be disabled to
restore the previous behavior of using the datadir while ignoring
the bitcoin.conf contained in it. (#27302)
Passing an invalid -debug, -debugexclude, or -loglevel logging configuration
option now raises an error, rather than logging an easily missed warning. (#27632)

Changes to GUI or wallet related settings can be found in the GUI or Wallet section below.

New settings

Tools and Utilities

A new bitcoinconsensus_verify_script_with_spent_outputs function is available in libconsensus which optionally accepts the spent outputs of the transaction being verified.
A new bitcoinconsensus_SCRIPT_FLAGS_VERIFY_TAPROOT flag is available in libconsensus that will verify scripts with the Taproot spending rules.

Wallet

Wallet loading has changed in this release. Wallets with some corrupted records that could be
previously loaded (with warnings) may no longer load. For example, wallets with corrupted
address book entries may no longer load. If this happens, it is recommended
load the wallet in a previous version of Bitcoin Core and import the data into a new wallet.
Please also report an issue to help improve the software and make wallet loading more robust
in these cases. (#24914)
The gettransaction, listtransactions, listsinceblock RPCs now return
the abandoned field for all transactions. Previously, the "abandoned" field
was only returned for sent transactions. (#25158)
The listdescriptors, decodepsbt and similar RPC methods now show h rather than apostrophe (') to indicate
hardened derivation. This does not apply when using the private parameter, which
matches the marker used when descriptor was generated or imported. Newly created
wallets use h. This change makes it easier to handle descriptor strings manually.
E.g. the importdescriptors RPC call is easiest to use h as the marker: '["desc": ".../0h/..."]'.
With this change listdescriptors will use h, so you can copy-paste the result,
without having to add escape characters or switch ' to 'h' manually.
Note that this changes the descriptor checksum.
For legacy wallets the hdkeypath field in getaddressinfo is unchanged,
nor is the serialization format of wallet dumps. (#26076)
The getbalances RPC now returns a lastprocessedblock JSON object which contains the wallet's last processed block
hash and height at the time the balances were calculated. This result shouldn't be cached because importing new keys could invalidate it. (#26094)
The gettransaction RPC now returns a lastprocessedblock JSON object which contains the wallet's last processed block
hash and height at the time the transaction information was generated. (#26094)
The getwalletinfo RPC now returns a lastprocessedblock JSON object which contains the wallet's last processed block
hash and height at the time the wallet information was generated. (#26094)
Coin selection and transaction building now accounts for unconfirmed low-feerate ancestor transactions. When it is necessary to spend unconfirmed outputs, the wallet will add fees to ensure that the new transaction with its ancestors will achieve a mining score equal to the feerate requested by the user. (#26152)
For RPC methods which accept options parameters ((importmulti, listunspent,
fundrawtransaction, bumpfee, send, sendall, walletcreatefundedpsbt,
simulaterawtransaction), it is now possible to pass the options as named
parameters without the need for a nested object. (#26485)

This means it is possible make calls like:

Code:

src/bitcoin-cli -named bumpfee txid fee_rate=100

instead of

Code:

]src/bitcoin-cli -named bumpfee txid options='{"fee_rate": 100}'

The deprecatedrpc=walletwarningfield configuration option has been removed.
The createwallet, loadwallet, restorewallet and unloadwallet RPCs no
longer return the "warning" string field. The same information is provided
through the "warnings" field added in v25.0, which returns a JSON array of
strings. The "warning" string field was deprecated also in v25.0. (#27757)
The signrawtransactionwithkey, signrawtransactionwithwallet,
walletprocesspsbt and descriptorprocesspsbt calls now return the more
specific RPC_INVALID_PARAMETER error instead of RPC_MISC_ERROR if their
sighashtype argument is malformed. (#28113)
RPC walletprocesspsbt, and descriptorprocesspsbt return
object now includes field hex (if the transaction
is complete) containing the serialized transaction
suitable for RPC sendrawtransaction. (#28414)
It's now possible to use Miniscript inside Taproot leaves for descriptor wallets. (#27255)

GUI changes

The transaction list in the GUI no longer provides a special category for "payment to yourself". Now transactions that have both inputs and outputs that affect the wallet are displayed on separate lines for spending and receiving. (gui#119)
A new menu option allows migrating a legacy wallet based on keys and implied output script types stored in BerkeleyDB (BDB) to a modern wallet that uses descriptors stored in SQLite. (gui#738)
The PSBT operations dialog marks outputs paying your own wallet with "own address". (gui#740)
The ability to create legacy wallets is being removed. (gui#764)

Low-level changes

Tests

Non-standard transactions are now disabled by default on testnet
for relay and mempool acceptance. The previous behaviour can be
re-enabled by setting -acceptnonstdtxn=1. (#28354)

Credits

Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:

0xb10c
Amiti Uttarwar
Andrew Chow
Andrew Toth
Anthony Towns
Antoine Poinsot
Antoine Riard
Ari
Aurèle Oulès
Ayush Singh
Ben Woosley
Brandon Odiwuor
Brotcrunsher
brunoerg
Bufo
Carl Dong
Casey Carter
Cory Fields
David Álvarez Rosa
dergoegge
dhruv
dimitaracev
Erik Arvstedt
Erik McKelvey
Fabian Jahr
furszy
glozow
Greg Sanders
Harris
Hennadii Stepanov
Hernan Marino
ishaanam
ismaelsadeeq
Jake Rawsthorne
James O'Beirne
John Moffett
Jon Atack
josibake
kevkevin
Kiminuo
Larry Ruane
Luke Dashjr
MarcoFalke
Marnix
Martin Leitner-Ankerl
Martin Zumsande
Matthew Zipkin
Michael Ford
Michael Tidwell
mruddy
Murch
ns-xvrn
pablomartin4btc
Pieter Wuille
Reese Russell
Rhythm Garg
Ryan Ofsky
Sebastian Falbesoner
Sjors Provoost
stickies-v
stratospher
Suhas Daftuar
TheCharlatan
Tim Neubauer
Tim Ruffing
Vasil Dimov
virtu
vuittont60
willcl-ark
Yusuf Sahin HAMZA

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

Thanks!!!