[doc] 0.12: prepare release notes

3 files changed, 1105 insertions, 134 deletions

diff --git a/doc/release-notes.md b/doc/release-notes.md
index 610cd481de..2fb669bc0c 100644
--- a/doc/release-notes.md
+++ b/doc/release-notes.md
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
-Bitcoin Core version 0.12.1 is now available from:
+Bitcoin Core version 0.12.2 is now available from:
 
-  <https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.12.1/>
+  <https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.12.2/>
 
-This is a new minor version release, including the BIP9, BIP68 and BIP112
-softfork, various bugfixes and updated translations.
+This is a new minor version release, including ........,
+various bugfixes and updated translations.
 
 Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github:
 
@@ -36,109 +36,10 @@ earlier.
 Notable changes
 ===============
 
-First version bits BIP9 softfork deployment
--------------------------------------------
-
-This release includes a soft fork deployment to enforce [BIP68][],
-[BIP112][] and [BIP113][] using the [BIP9][] deployment mechanism.
-
-The deployment sets the block version number to 0x20000001 between
-midnight 1st May 2016 and midnight 1st May 2017 to signal readiness for 
-deployment. The version number consists of 0x20000000 to indicate version
-bits together with setting bit 0 to indicate support for this combined
-deployment, shown as "csv" in the `getblockchaininfo` RPC call.
-
-For more information about the soft forking change, please see
-<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7648>
-
-This specific backport pull-request can be viewed at
-<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7543>
-
-[BIP9]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0009.mediawiki
-[BIP68]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0068.mediawiki
-[BIP112]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0112.mediawiki
-[BIP113]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0113.mediawiki
-
-BIP68 soft fork to enforce sequence locks for relative locktime
----------------------------------------------------------------
-
-[BIP68][] introduces relative lock-time consensus-enforced semantics of
-the sequence number field to enable a signed transaction input to remain
-invalid for a defined period of time after confirmation of its corresponding
-outpoint.
-
-For more information about the implementation, see
-<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7184>
-
-BIP112 soft fork to enforce OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY
---------------------------------------------------
-
-[BIP112][] redefines the existing OP_NOP3 as OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY (CSV)
-for a new opcode in the Bitcoin scripting system that in combination with
-[BIP68][] allows execution pathways of a script to be restricted based
-on the age of the output being spent.
-
-For more information about the implementation, see
-<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7524>
-
-BIP113 locktime enforcement soft fork
--------------------------------------
-
-Bitcoin Core 0.11.2 previously introduced mempool-only locktime
-enforcement using GetMedianTimePast(). This release seeks to
-consensus enforce the rule.
-
-Bitcoin transactions currently may specify a locktime indicating when
-they may be added to a valid block.  Current consensus rules require
-that blocks have a block header time greater than the locktime specified
-in any transaction in that block.
-
-Miners get to choose what time they use for their header time, with the
-consensus rule being that no node will accept a block whose time is more
-than two hours in the future.  This creates a incentive for miners to
-set their header times to future values in order to include locktimed
-transactions which weren't supposed to be included for up to two more
-hours.
-
-The consensus rules also specify that valid blocks may have a header
-time greater than that of the median of the 11 previous blocks.  This
-GetMedianTimePast() time has a key feature we generally associate with
-time: it can't go backwards.
-
-[BIP113][] specifies a soft fork enforced in this release that
-weakens this perverse incentive for individual miners to use a future
-time by requiring that valid blocks have a computed GetMedianTimePast()
-greater than the locktime specified in any transaction in that block.
-
-Mempool inclusion rules currently require transactions to be valid for
-immediate inclusion in a block in order to be accepted into the mempool.
-This release begins applying the BIP113 rule to received transactions,
-so transaction whose time is greater than the GetMedianTimePast() will
-no longer be accepted into the mempool.
-
-**Implication for miners:** you will begin rejecting transactions that
-would not be valid under BIP113, which will prevent you from producing
-invalid blocks when BIP113 is enforced on the network. Any
-transactions which are valid under the current rules but not yet valid
-under the BIP113 rules will either be mined by other miners or delayed
-until they are valid under BIP113. Note, however, that time-based
-locktime transactions are more or less unseen on the network currently.
-
-**Implication for users:** GetMedianTimePast() always trails behind the
-current time, so a transaction locktime set to the present time will be
-rejected by nodes running this release until the median time moves
-forward. To compensate, subtract one hour (3,600 seconds) from your
-locktimes to allow those transactions to be included in mempools at
-approximately the expected time.
-
-For more information about the implementation, see
-<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6566>
-
-Miscellaneous
--------------
-
-The p2p alert system is off by default. To turn on, use `-alert` with
-startup configuration.
+Example item
+---------------------------------------
+
+Example text.
 
 0.12.1 Change log
 =================
@@ -148,51 +49,32 @@ behavior, not code moves, refactors and string updates. For convenience in locat
 the code changes and accompanying discussion, both the pull request and
 git merge commit are mentioned.
 
-### RPC and other APIs
-- #7739 `7ffc2bd` Add abandoned status to listtransactions (jonasschnelli)
+### RPC and REST
+
+### Configuration and command-line options
 
 ### Block and transaction handling
-- #7543 `834aaef` Backport BIP9, BIP68 and BIP112 with softfork (btcdrak)
 
 ### P2P protocol and network code
-- #7804 `90f1d24` Track block download times per individual block (sipa)
-- #7832 `4c3a00d` Reduce block timeout to 10 minutes (laanwj)
 
 ### Validation
-- #7821 `4226aac` init: allow shutdown during 'Activating best chain...' (laanwj)
-- #7835 `46898e7` Version 2 transactions remain non-standard until CSV activates (sdaftuar)
 
 ### Build system
-- #7487 `00d57b4` Workaround Travis-side CI issues (luke-jr)
-- #7606 `a10da9a` No need to set -L and --location for curl (MarcoFalke)
-- #7614 `ca8f160` Add curl to packages (now needed for depends) (luke-jr)
-- #7776 `a784675` Remove unnecessary executables from gitian release (laanwj)
 
 ### Wallet
-- #7715 `19866c1` Fix calculation of balances and available coins. (morcos)
+
+### GUI
+
+### Tests and QA
 
 ### Miscellaneous
-- #7617 `f04f4fd` Fix markdown syntax and line terminate LogPrint (MarcoFalke)
-- #7747 `4d035bc` added depends cross compile info (accraze)
-- #7741 `a0cea89` Mark p2p alert system as deprecated (btcdrak)
-- #7780 `c5f94f6` Disable bad-chain alert (btcdrak)
 
 Credits
 =======
 
 Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:
 
-- accraze
-- Alex Morcos
-- BtcDrak
-- Jonas Schnelli
-- Luke Dashjr
-- MarcoFalke
-- Mark Friedenbach
-- NicolasDorier
-- Pieter Wuille
-- Suhas Daftuar
-- Wladimir J. van der Laan
 
 As well as everyone that helped translating on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/bitcoin/).
 
+
diff --git a/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.12.0.md b/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.12.0.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..85c020a9cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.12.0.md
@@ -0,0 +1,891 @@
+Bitcoin Core version 0.12.0 is now available from:
+
+  <https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.12.0/>
+
+This is a new major version release, bringing new features and other improvements.
+
+Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github:
+
+  <https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues>
+
+Upgrading and downgrading
+=========================
+
+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).
+
+Downgrade warning
+-----------------
+
+### Downgrade to a version < 0.10.0
+
+Because release 0.10.0 and later makes use of headers-first synchronization and
+parallel block download (see further), the block files and databases are not
+backwards-compatible with pre-0.10 versions of Bitcoin Core or other software:
+
+* Blocks will be stored on disk out of order (in the order they are
+received, really), which makes it incompatible with some tools or
+other programs. Reindexing using earlier versions will also not work
+anymore as a result of this.
+
+* The block index database will now hold headers for which no block is
+stored on disk, which earlier versions won't support.
+
+If you want to be able to downgrade smoothly, make a backup of your entire data
+directory. Without this your node will need start syncing (or importing from
+bootstrap.dat) anew afterwards. It is possible that the data from a completely
+synchronised 0.10 node may be usable in older versions as-is, but this is not
+supported and may break as soon as the older version attempts to reindex.
+
+This does not affect wallet forward or backward compatibility.
+
+### Downgrade to a version < 0.12.0
+
+Because release 0.12.0 and later will obfuscate the chainstate on every
+fresh sync or reindex, the chainstate is not backwards-compatible with
+pre-0.12 versions of Bitcoin Core or other software.
+
+If you want to downgrade after you have done a reindex with 0.12.0 or later,
+you will need to reindex when you first start Bitcoin Core version 0.11 or
+earlier.
+
+Notable changes
+===============
+
+Signature validation using libsecp256k1
+---------------------------------------
+
+ECDSA signatures inside Bitcoin transactions now use validation using
+[libsecp256k1](https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1) instead of OpenSSL.
+
+Depending on the platform, this means a significant speedup for raw signature
+validation speed. The advantage is largest on x86_64, where validation is over
+five times faster. In practice, this translates to a raw reindexing and new
+block validation times that are less than half of what it was before.
+
+Libsecp256k1 has undergone very extensive testing and validation.
+
+A side effect of this change is that libconsensus no longer depends on OpenSSL.
+
+Reduce upload traffic
+---------------------
+
+A major part of the outbound traffic is caused by serving historic blocks to
+other nodes in initial block download state.
+
+It is now possible to reduce the total upload traffic via the `-maxuploadtarget`
+parameter. This is *not* a hard limit but a threshold to minimize the outbound
+traffic. When the limit is about to be reached, the uploaded data is cut by not
+serving historic blocks (blocks older than one week).
+Moreover, any SPV peer is disconnected when they request a filtered block.
+
+This option can be specified in MiB per day and is turned off by default
+(`-maxuploadtarget=0`).
+The recommended minimum is 144 * MAX_BLOCK_SIZE (currently 144MB) per day.
+
+Whitelisted peers will never be disconnected, although their traffic counts for
+calculating the target.
+
+A more detailed documentation about keeping traffic low can be found in
+[/doc/reduce-traffic.md](/doc/reduce-traffic.md).
+
+Direct headers announcement (BIP 130)
+-------------------------------------
+
+Between compatible peers, [BIP 130]
+(https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0130.mediawiki)
+direct headers announcement is used. This means that blocks are advertised by
+announcing their headers directly, instead of just announcing the hash. In a
+reorganization, all new headers are sent, instead of just the new tip. This
+can often prevent an extra roundtrip before the actual block is downloaded.
+
+With this change, pruning nodes are now able to relay new blocks to compatible
+peers.
+
+Memory pool limiting
+--------------------
+
+Previous versions of Bitcoin Core had their mempool limited by checking
+a transaction's fees against the node's minimum relay fee. There was no
+upper bound on the size of the mempool and attackers could send a large
+number of transactions paying just slighly more than the default minimum
+relay fee to crash nodes with relatively low RAM. A temporary workaround
+for previous versions of Bitcoin Core was to raise the default minimum
+relay fee.
+
+Bitcoin Core 0.12 will have a strict maximum size on the mempool. The
+default value is 300 MB and can be configured with the `-maxmempool`
+parameter. Whenever a transaction would cause the mempool to exceed
+its maximum size, the transaction that (along with in-mempool descendants) has
+the lowest total feerate (as a package) will be evicted and the node's effective
+minimum relay feerate will be increased to match this feerate plus the initial
+minimum relay feerate. The initial minimum relay feerate is set to
+1000 satoshis per kB.
+
+Bitcoin Core 0.12 also introduces new default policy limits on the length and
+size of unconfirmed transaction chains that are allowed in the mempool
+(generally limiting the length of unconfirmed chains to 25 transactions, with a
+total size of 101 KB).  These limits can be overriden using command line
+arguments; see the extended help (`--help -help-debug`) for more information.
+
+Opt-in Replace-by-fee transactions
+----------------------------------
+
+It is now possible to replace transactions in the transaction memory pool of
+Bitcoin Core 0.12 nodes. Bitcoin Core will only allow replacement of
+transactions which have any of their inputs' `nSequence` number set to less
+than `0xffffffff - 1`.  Moreover, a replacement transaction may only be
+accepted when it pays sufficient fee, as described in [BIP 125]
+(https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki).
+
+Transaction replacement can be disabled with a new command line option,
+`-mempoolreplacement=0`.  Transactions signaling replacement under BIP125 will
+still be allowed into the mempool in this configuration, but replacements will
+be rejected.  This option is intended for miners who want to continue the
+transaction selection behavior of previous releases.
+
+The `-mempoolreplacement` option is *not recommended* for wallet users seeking
+to avoid receipt of unconfirmed opt-in transactions, because this option does
+not prevent transactions which are replaceable under BIP 125 from being accepted
+(only subsequent replacements, which other nodes on the network that implement
+BIP 125 are likely to relay and mine).  Wallet users wishing to detect whether
+a transaction is subject to replacement under BIP 125 should instead use the
+updated RPC calls `gettransaction` and `listtransactions`, which now have an
+additional field in the output indicating if a transaction is replaceable under
+BIP125 ("bip125-replaceable").
+
+Note that the wallet in Bitcoin Core 0.12 does not yet have support for
+creating transactions that would be replaceable under BIP 125.
+
+
+RPC: Random-cookie RPC authentication
+-------------------------------------
+
+When no `-rpcpassword` is specified, the daemon now uses a special 'cookie'
+file for authentication. This file is generated with random content when the
+daemon starts, and deleted when it exits. Its contents are used as
+authentication token. Read access to this file controls who can access through
+RPC. By default it is stored in the data directory but its location can be
+overridden with the option `-rpccookiefile`.
+
+This is similar to Tor's CookieAuthentication: see
+https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html.en
+
+This allows running bitcoind without having to do any manual configuration.
+
+Relay: Any sequence of pushdatas in OP_RETURN outputs now allowed
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Previously OP_RETURN outputs with a payload were only relayed and mined if they
+had a single pushdata. This restriction has been lifted to allow any
+combination of data pushes and numeric constant opcodes (OP_1 to OP_16) after
+the OP_RETURN. The limit on OP_RETURN output size is now applied to the entire
+serialized scriptPubKey, 83 bytes by default. (the previous 80 byte default plus
+three bytes overhead)
+
+Relay and Mining: Priority transactions
+---------------------------------------
+
+Bitcoin Core has a heuristic 'priority' based on coin value and age. This
+calculation is used for relaying of transactions which do not pay the
+minimum relay fee, and can be used as an alternative way of sorting
+transactions for mined blocks. Bitcoin Core will relay transactions with
+insufficient fees depending on the setting of `-limitfreerelay=<r>` (default:
+`r=15` kB per minute) and `-blockprioritysize=<s>`.
+
+In Bitcoin Core 0.12, when mempool limit has been reached a higher minimum
+relay fee takes effect to limit memory usage. Transactions which do not meet
+this higher effective minimum relay fee will not be relayed or mined even if
+they rank highly according to the priority heuristic.
+
+The mining of transactions based on their priority is also now disabled by
+default. To re-enable it, simply set `-blockprioritysize=<n>` where is the size
+in bytes of your blocks to reserve for these transactions. The old default was
+50k, so to retain approximately the same policy, you would set
+`-blockprioritysize=50000`.
+
+Additionally, as a result of computational simplifications, the priority value
+used for transactions received with unconfirmed inputs is lower than in prior
+versions due to avoiding recomputing the amounts as input transactions confirm.
+
+External miner policy set via the `prioritisetransaction` RPC to rank
+transactions already in the mempool continues to work as it has previously.
+Note, however, that if mining priority transactions is left disabled, the
+priority delta will be ignored and only the fee metric will be effective.
+
+This internal automatic prioritization handling is being considered for removal
+entirely in Bitcoin Core 0.13, and it is at this time undecided whether the
+more accurate priority calculation for chained unconfirmed transactions will be
+restored. Community direction on this topic is particularly requested to help
+set project priorities.
+
+Automatically use Tor hidden services
+-------------------------------------
+
+Starting with Tor version 0.2.7.1 it is possible, through Tor's control socket
+API, to create and destroy 'ephemeral' hidden services programmatically.
+Bitcoin Core has been updated to make use of this.
+
+This means that if Tor is running (and proper authorization is available),
+Bitcoin Core automatically creates a hidden service to listen on, without
+manual configuration. Bitcoin Core will also use Tor automatically to connect
+to other .onion nodes if the control socket can be successfully opened. This
+will positively affect the number of available .onion nodes and their usage.
+
+This new feature is enabled by default if Bitcoin Core is listening, and
+a connection to Tor can be made. It can be configured with the `-listenonion`,
+`-torcontrol` and `-torpassword` settings. To show verbose debugging
+information, pass `-debug=tor`.
+
+Notifications through ZMQ
+-------------------------
+
+Bitcoind can now (optionally) asynchronously notify clients through a
+ZMQ-based PUB socket of the arrival of new transactions and blocks.
+This feature requires installation of the ZMQ C API library 4.x and
+configuring its use through the command line or configuration file.
+Please see [docs/zmq.md](/doc/zmq.md) for details of operation.
+
+Wallet: Transaction fees
+------------------------
+
+Various improvements have been made to how the wallet calculates
+transaction fees.
+
+Users can decide to pay a predefined fee rate by setting `-paytxfee=<n>`
+(or `settxfee <n>` rpc during runtime). A value of `n=0` signals Bitcoin
+Core to use floating fees. By default, Bitcoin Core will use floating
+fees.
+
+Based on past transaction data, floating fees approximate the fees
+required to get into the `m`th block from now. This is configurable
+with `-txconfirmtarget=<m>` (default: `2`).
+
+Sometimes, it is not possible to give good estimates, or an estimate
+at all. Therefore, a fallback value can be set with `-fallbackfee=<f>`
+(default: `0.0002` BTC/kB).
+
+At all times, Bitcoin Core will cap fees at `-maxtxfee=<x>` (default:
+0.10) BTC.
+Furthermore, Bitcoin Core will never create transactions paying less than
+the current minimum relay fee.
+Finally, a user can set the minimum fee rate for all transactions with
+`-mintxfee=<i>`, which defaults to 1000 satoshis per kB.
+
+Wallet: Negative confirmations and conflict detection
+-----------------------------------------------------
+
+The wallet will now report a negative number for confirmations that indicates
+how deep in the block chain the conflict is found. For example, if a transaction
+A has 5 confirmations and spends the same input as a wallet transaction B, B
+will be reported as having -5 confirmations. If another wallet transaction C
+spends an output from B, it will also be reported as having -5 confirmations.
+To detect conflicts with historical transactions in the chain a one-time
+`-rescan` may be needed.
+
+Unlike earlier versions, unconfirmed but non-conflicting transactions will never
+get a negative confirmation count. They are not treated as spendable unless
+they're coming from ourself (change) and accepted into our local mempool,
+however. The new "trusted" field in the `listtransactions` RPC output
+indicates whether outputs of an unconfirmed transaction are considered
+spendable.
+
+Wallet: Merkle branches removed
+-------------------------------
+
+Previously, every wallet transaction stored a Merkle branch to prove its
+presence in blocks. This wasn't being used for more than an expensive
+sanity check. Since 0.12, these are no longer stored. When loading a
+0.12 wallet into an older version, it will automatically rescan to avoid
+failed checks.
+
+Wallet: Pruning
+---------------
+
+With 0.12 it is possible to use wallet functionality in pruned mode.
+This can reduce the disk usage from currently around 60 GB to
+around 2 GB.
+
+However, rescans as well as the RPCs `importwallet`, `importaddress`,
+`importprivkey` are disabled.
+
+To enable block pruning set `prune=<N>` on the command line or in
+`bitcoin.conf`, where `N` is the number of MiB to allot for
+raw block & undo data.
+
+A value of 0 disables pruning. The minimal value above 0 is 550. Your
+wallet is as secure with high values as it is with low ones. Higher
+values merely ensure that your node will not shut down upon blockchain
+reorganizations of more than 2 days - which are unlikely to happen in
+practice. In future releases, a higher value may also help the network
+as a whole: stored blocks could be served to other nodes.
+
+For further information about pruning, you may also consult the [release
+notes of v0.11.0](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.11.0/doc/release-notes.md#block-file-pruning).
+
+`NODE_BLOOM` service bit
+------------------------
+
+Support for the `NODE_BLOOM` service bit, as described in [BIP
+111](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0111.mediawiki), has been
+added to the P2P protocol code.
+
+BIP 111 defines a service bit to allow peers to advertise that they support
+bloom filters (such as used by SPV clients) explicitly. It also bumps the protocol
+version to allow peers to identify old nodes which allow bloom filtering of the
+connection despite lacking the new service bit.
+
+In this version, it is only enforced for peers that send protocol versions
+`>=70011`. For the next major version it is planned that this restriction will be
+removed. It is recommended to update SPV clients to check for the `NODE_BLOOM`
+service bit for nodes that report versions newer than 70011.
+
+Option parsing behavior
+-----------------------
+
+Command line options are now parsed strictly in the order in which they are
+specified. It used to be the case that `-X -noX` ends up, unintuitively, with X
+set, as `-X` had precedence over `-noX`. This is no longer the case. Like for
+other software, the last specified value for an option will hold.
+
+RPC: Low-level API changes
+--------------------------
+
+- Monetary amounts can be provided as strings. This means that for example the
+  argument to sendtoaddress can be "0.0001" instead of 0.0001. This can be an
+  advantage if a JSON library insists on using a lossy floating point type for
+  numbers, which would be dangerous for monetary amounts.
+
+* The `asm` property of each scriptSig now contains the decoded signature hash
+  type for each signature that provides a valid defined hash type.
+
+* OP_NOP2 has been renamed to OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY by [BIP 65](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0065.mediawiki)
+
+The following items contain assembly representations of scriptSig signatures
+and are affected by this change:
+
+- RPC `getrawtransaction`
+- RPC `decoderawtransaction`
+- RPC `decodescript`
+- REST `/rest/tx/` (JSON format)
+- REST `/rest/block/` (JSON format when including extended tx details)
+- `bitcoin-tx -json`
+
+For example, the `scriptSig.asm` property of a transaction input that
+previously showed an assembly representation of:
+
+    304502207fa7a6d1e0ee81132a269ad84e68d695483745cde8b541e3bf630749894e342a022100c1f7ab20e13e22fb95281a870f3dcf38d782e53023ee313d741ad0cfbc0c509001 400000 OP_NOP2
+
+now shows as:
+
+    304502207fa7a6d1e0ee81132a269ad84e68d695483745cde8b541e3bf630749894e342a022100c1f7ab20e13e22fb95281a870f3dcf38d782e53023ee313d741ad0cfbc0c5090[ALL] 400000 OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY
+
+Note that the output of the RPC `decodescript` did not change because it is
+configured specifically to process scriptPubKey and not scriptSig scripts.
+
+RPC: SSL support dropped
+------------------------
+
+SSL support for RPC, previously enabled by the option `rpcssl` has been dropped
+from both the client and the server. This was done in preparation for removing
+the dependency on OpenSSL for the daemon completely.
+
+Trying to use `rpcssl` will result in an error:
+
+    Error: SSL mode for RPC (-rpcssl) is no longer supported.
+
+If you are one of the few people that relies on this feature, a flexible
+migration path is to use `stunnel`. This is an utility that can tunnel
+arbitrary TCP connections inside SSL. On e.g. Ubuntu it can be installed with:
+
+    sudo apt-get install stunnel4
+
+Then, to tunnel a SSL connection on 28332 to a RPC server bound on localhost on port 18332 do:
+
+    stunnel -d 28332 -r 127.0.0.1:18332 -p stunnel.pem -P ''
+
+It can also be set up system-wide in inetd style.
+
+Another way to re-attain SSL would be to setup a httpd reverse proxy. This solution
+would allow the use of different authentication, loadbalancing, on-the-fly compression and
+caching. A sample config for apache2 could look like:
+
+    Listen 443
+
+    NameVirtualHost *:443
+    <VirtualHost *:443>
+
+    SSLEngine On
+    SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.crt
+    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.key
+
+    <Location /bitcoinrpc>
+        ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8332/
+        ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:8332/
+        # optional enable digest auth
+        # AuthType Digest
+        # ...
+
+        # optional bypass bitcoind rpc basic auth
+        # RequestHeader set Authorization "Basic <hash>"
+        # get the <hash> from the shell with: base64 <<< bitcoinrpc:<password>
+    </Location>
+
+    # Or, balance the load:
+    # ProxyPass / balancer://balancer_cluster_name
+
+    </VirtualHost>
+
+Mining Code Changes
+-------------------
+
+The mining code in 0.12 has been optimized to be significantly faster and use less
+memory. As part of these changes, consensus critical calculations are cached on a
+transaction's acceptance into the mempool and the mining code now relies on the
+consistency of the mempool to assemble blocks. However all blocks are still tested
+for validity after assembly.
+
+Other P2P Changes
+-----------------
+
+The list of banned peers is now stored on disk rather than in memory.
+Restarting bitcoind will no longer clear out the list of banned peers; instead
+a new RPC call (`clearbanned`) can be used to manually clear the list.  The new
+`setban` RPC call can also be used to manually ban or unban a peer.
+
+0.12.0 Change log
+=================
+
+Detailed release notes follow. This overview includes changes that affect
+behavior, not code moves, refactors and string updates. For convenience in locating
+the code changes and accompanying discussion, both the pull request and
+git merge commit are mentioned.
+
+### RPC and REST
+
+- #6121 `466f0ea` Convert entire source tree from json_spirit to UniValue (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6234 `d38cd47` fix rpcmining/getblocktemplate univalue transition logic error (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6239 `643114f` Don't go through double in AmountFromValue and ValueFromAmount (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6266 `ebab5d3` Fix univalue handling of \u0000 characters. (Daniel Kraft)
+- #6276 `f3d4dbb` Fix getbalance * 0 (Tom Harding)
+- #6257 `5ebe7db` Add `paytxfee` and `errors` JSON fields where appropriate (Stephen)
+- #6271 `754aae5` New RPC command disconnectnode (Alex van der Peet)
+- #6158 `0abfa8a` Add setban/listbanned RPC commands (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6307 `7ecdcd9` rpcban fixes (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6290 `5753988` rpc: make `gettxoutsettinfo` run lock-free (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6262 `247b914` Return all available information via RPC call "validateaddress" (dexX7)
+- #6339 `c3f0490` UniValue: don't escape solidus, keep espacing of reverse solidus (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6353 `6bcb0a2` Show softfork status in getblockchaininfo (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6247 `726e286` Add getblockheader RPC call (Peter Todd)
+- #6362 `d6db115` Fix null id in RPC response during startup (Forrest Voight)
+- #5486 `943b322` [REST] JSON support for /rest/headers (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6379 `c52e8b3` rpc: Accept scientific notation for monetary amounts in JSON (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6388 `fd5dfda` rpc: Implement random-cookie based authentication (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6457 `3c923e8` Include pruned state in chaininfo.json (Simon Males)
+- #6456 `bfd807f` rpc: Avoid unnecessary parsing roundtrip in number formatting, fix locale issue (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6380 `240b30e` rpc: Accept strings in AmountFromValue (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6346 `6bb2805` Add OP_RETURN support in createrawtransaction RPC call, add tests. (paveljanik)
+- #6013 `6feeec1` [REST] Add memory pool API (paveljanik)
+- #6576 `da9beb2` Stop parsing JSON after first finished construct. (Daniel Kraft)
+- #5677 `9aa9099` libevent-based http server (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6633 `bbc2b39` Report minimum ping time in getpeerinfo (Matt Corallo)
+- #6648 `cd381d7` Simplify logic of REST request suffix parsing. (Daniel Kraft)
+- #6695 `5e21388` libevent http fixes (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #5264 `48efbdb` show scriptSig signature hash types in transaction decodes. fixes #3166 (mruddy)
+- #6719 `1a9f19a` Make HTTP server shutdown more graceful (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6859 `0fbfc51` http: Restrict maximum size of http + headers (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #5936 `bf7c195` [RPC] Add optional locktime to createrawtransaction (Tom Harding)
+- #6877 `26f5b34` rpc: Add maxmempool and effective min fee to getmempoolinfo (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6970 `92701b3` Fix crash in validateaddress with -disablewallet (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #5574 `755b4ba` Expose GUI labels in RPC as comments (Luke-Jr)
+- #6990 `dbd2c13` http: speed up shutdown (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7013 `36baa9f` Remove LOCK(cs_main) from decodescript (Peter Todd)
+- #6999 `972bf9c` add (max)uploadtarget infos to getnettotals RPC help (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7011 `31de241` Add mediantime to getblockchaininfo (Peter Todd)
+- #7065 `f91e29f` http: add Boost 1.49 compatibility (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7087 `be281d8` [Net]Add -enforcenodebloom option (Patrick Strateman)
+- #7044 `438ee59` RPC: Added additional config option for multiple RPC users. (Gregory Sanders)
+- #7072 `c143c49` [RPC] Add transaction size to JSON output (Nikita Zhavoronkov)
+- #7022 `9afbd96` Change default block priority size to 0 (Alex Morcos)
+- #7141 `c0c08c7` rpc: Don't translate warning messages (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7312 `fd4bd50` Add RPC call abandontransaction (Alex Morcos)
+- #7222 `e25b158` RPC: indicate which transactions are replaceable (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #7472 `b2f2b85` rpc: Add WWW-Authenticate header to 401 response (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7469 `9cb31e6` net.h fix spelling: misbeha{b,v}ing (Matt)
+
+### Configuration and command-line options
+
+- #6164 `8d05ec7` Allow user to use -debug=1 to enable all debugging (lpescher)
+- #5288 `4452205` Added `-whiteconnections=<n>` option (Josh Lehan)
+- #6284 `10ac38e` Fix argument parsing oddity with -noX (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6489 `c9c017a` Give a better error message if system clock is bad (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6462 `c384800` implement uacomment config parameter which can add comments to user agent as per BIP-0014 (Pavol Rusnak)
+- #6647 `a3babc8` Sanitize uacomment (MarcoFalke)
+- #6742 `3b2d37c` Changed logging to make -logtimestamps to work also for -printtoconsole (arnuschky)
+- #6846 `2cd020d` alias -h for -help (Daniel Cousens)
+- #6622 `7939164` Introduce -maxuploadtarget (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6881 `2b62551` Debug: Add option for microsecond precision in debug.log (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #6776 `e06c14f` Support -checkmempool=N, which runs checks once every N transactions (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6896 `d482c0a` Make -checkmempool=1 not fail through int32 overflow (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6993 `b632145` Add -blocksonly option (Patrick Strateman)
+- #7323 `a344880` 0.12: Backport -bytespersigop option (Luke-Jr)
+- #7386 `da83ecd` Add option `-permitrbf` to set transaction replacement policy (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7290 `b16b5bc` Add missing options help (MarcoFalke)
+- #7440 `c76bfff` Rename permitrbf to mempoolreplacement and provide minimal string-list forward compatibility (Luke-Jr)
+
+### Block and transaction handling
+
+- #6203 `f00b623` Remove P2SH coinbase flag, no longer interesting (Luke-Jr)
+- #6222 `9c93ee5` Explicitly set tx.nVersion for the genesis block and mining tests (Mark Friedenbach)
+- #5985 `3a1d3e8` Fix removing of orphan transactions (Alex Morcos)
+- #6221 `dd8fe82` Prune: Support noncontiguous block files (Adam Weiss)
+- #6124 `41076aa` Mempool only CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY (BIP65) verification, unparameterized version (Peter Todd)
+- #6329 `d0a10c1` acceptnonstdtxn option to skip (most) "non-standard transaction" checks, for testnet/regtest only (Luke-Jr)
+- #6410 `7cdefb9` Implement accurate memory accounting for mempool (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6444 `24ce77d` Exempt unspendable transaction outputs from dust checks (dexX7)
+- #5913 `a0625b8` Add absurdly high fee message to validation state (Shaul Kfir)
+- #6177 `2f746c6` Prevent block.nTime from decreasing (Mark Friedenbach)
+- #6377 `e545371` Handle no chain tip available in InvalidChainFound() (Ross Nicoll)
+- #6551 `39ddaeb` Handle leveldb::DestroyDB() errors on wipe failure (Adam Weiss)
+- #6654 `b0ce450` Mempool package tracking (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #6715 `82d2aef` Fix mempool packages (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #6680 `4f44530` use CBlockIndex instead of uint256 for UpdatedBlockTip signal (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6650 `4fac576` Obfuscate chainstate (James O'Beirne)
+- #6777 `9caaf6e` Unobfuscate chainstate data in CCoinsViewDB::GetStats (James O'Beirne)
+- #6722 `3b20e23` Limit mempool by throwing away the cheapest txn and setting min relay fee to it (Matt Corallo)
+- #6889 `38369dd` fix locking issue with new mempool limiting (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6464 `8f3b3cd` Always clean up manual transaction prioritization (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6865 `d0badb9` Fix chainstate serialized_size computation (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6566 `ff057f4` BIP-113: Mempool-only median time-past as endpoint for lock-time calculations (Mark Friedenbach)
+- #6934 `3038eb6` Restores mempool only BIP113 enforcement (Gregory Maxwell)
+- #6965 `de7d459` Benchmark sanity checks and fork checks in ConnectBlock (Matt Corallo)
+- #6918 `eb6172a` Make sigcache faster, more efficient, larger (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6771 `38ed190` Policy: Lower default limits for tx chains (Alex Morcos)
+- #6932 `73fa5e6` ModifyNewCoins saves database lookups (Alex Morcos)
+- #5967 `05d5918` Alter assumptions in CCoinsViewCache::BatchWrite (Alex Morcos)
+- #6871 `0e93586` nSequence-based Full-RBF opt-in (Peter Todd)
+- #7008 `eb77416` Lower bound priority (Alex Morcos)
+- #6915 `2ef5ffa` [Mempool] Improve removal of invalid transactions after reorgs (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #6898 `4077ad2` Rewrite CreateNewBlock (Alex Morcos)
+- #6872 `bdda4d5` Remove UTXO cache entries when the tx they were added for is removed/does not enter mempool (Matt Corallo)
+- #7062 `12c469b` [Mempool] Fix mempool limiting and replace-by-fee for PrioritiseTransaction (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #7276 `76de36f` Report non-mandatory script failures correctly (Pieter Wuille)
+- #7217 `e08b7cb` Mark blocks with too many sigops as failed (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #7387 `f4b2ce8` Get rid of inaccurate ScriptSigArgsExpected (Pieter Wuille)
+
+### P2P protocol and network code
+
+- #6172 `88a7ead` Ignore getheaders requests when not synced (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #5875 `9d60602` Be stricter in processing unrequested blocks (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #6256 `8ccc07c` Use best header chain timestamps to detect partitioning (Gavin Andresen)
+- #6283 `a903ad7` make CAddrMan::size() return the correct type of size_t (Diapolo)
+- #6272 `40400d5` Improve proxy initialization (continues #4871) (Wladimir J. van der Laan, Diapolo)
+- #6310 `66e5465` banlist.dat: store banlist on disk (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6412 `1a2de32` Test whether created sockets are select()able (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6498 `219b916` Keep track of recently rejected transactions with a rolling bloom filter (cont'd) (Peter Todd)
+- #6556 `70ec975` Fix masking of irrelevant bits in address groups. (Alex Morcos)
+- #6530 `ea19c2b` Improve addrman Select() performance when buckets are nearly empty (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6583 `af9305a` add support for miniupnpc api version 14 (Pavel Vasin)
+- #6374 `69dc5b5` Connection slot exhaustion DoS mitigation (Patrick Strateman)
+- #6636 `536207f` net: correctly initialize nMinPingUsecTime (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6579 `0c27795` Add NODE_BLOOM service bit and bump protocol version (Matt Corallo)
+- #6148 `999c8be` Relay blocks when pruning (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #6588 `cf9bb11` In (strCommand == "tx"), return if AlreadyHave() (Tom Harding)
+- #6974 `2f71b07` Always allow getheaders from whitelisted peers (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6639 `bd629d7` net: Automatically create hidden service, listen on Tor (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6984 `9ffc687` don't enforce maxuploadtarget's disconnect for whitelisted peers (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7046 `c322652` Net: Improve blocks only mode. (Patrick Strateman)
+- #7090 `d6454f6` Connect to Tor hidden services by default (when listening on Tor) (Peter Todd)
+- #7106 `c894fbb` Fix and improve relay from whitelisted peers (Pieter Wuille)
+- #7129 `5d5ef3a` Direct headers announcement (rebase of #6494) (Pieter Wuille)
+- #7079 `1b5118b` Prevent peer flooding inv request queue (redux) (redux) (Gregory Maxwell)
+- #7166 `6ba25d2` Disconnect on mempool requests from peers when over the upload limit. (Gregory Maxwell)
+- #7133 `f31955d` Replace setInventoryKnown with a rolling bloom filter (rebase of #7100) (Pieter Wuille)
+- #7174 `82aff88` Don't do mempool lookups for "mempool" command without a filter (Matt Corallo)
+- #7179 `44fef99` net: Fix sent reject messages for blocks and transactions (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7181 `8fc174a` net: Add and document network messages in protocol.h (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7125 `10b88be` Replace global trickle node with random delays (Pieter Wuille)
+- #7415 `cb83beb` net: Hardcoded seeds update January 2016 (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7438 `e2d9a58` Do not absolutely protect local peers; decide group ties based on time (Gregory Maxwell)
+- #7439 `86755bc` Add whitelistforcerelay to control forced relaying. [#7099 redux] (Gregory Maxwell)
+- #7482 `e16f5b4` Ensure headers count is correct (Suhas Daftuar)
+
+### Validation
+
+- #5927 `8d9f0a6` Reduce checkpoints' effect on consensus. (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6299 `24f2489` Bugfix: Don't check the genesis block header before accepting it (Jorge Timón)
+- #6361 `d7ada03` Use real number of cores for default -par, ignore virtual cores (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6519 `87f37e2` Make logging for validation optional (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6351 `2a1090d` CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY (BIP65) IsSuperMajority() soft-fork (Peter Todd)
+- #6931 `54e8bfe` Skip BIP 30 verification where not necessary (Alex Morcos)
+- #6954 `e54ebbf` Switch to libsecp256k1-based ECDSA validation (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6508 `61457c2` Switch to a constant-space Merkle root/branch algorithm. (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6914 `327291a` Add pre-allocated vector type and use it for CScript (Pieter Wuille)
+- #7500 `889e5b3` Correctly report high-S violations (Pieter Wuille)
+
+
+### Build system
+
+- #6210 `0e4f2a0` build: disable optional use of gmp in internal secp256k1 build (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6214 `87406aa` [OSX] revert renaming of Bitcoin-Qt.app and use CFBundleDisplayName (partial revert of #6116) (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6218 `9d67b10` build/gitian misc updates (Cory Fields)
+- #6269 `d4565b6` gitian: Use the new bitcoin-detached-sigs git repo for OSX signatures (Cory Fields)
+- #6418 `d4a910c` Add autogen.sh to source tarball. (randy-waterhouse)
+- #6373 `1ae3196` depends: non-qt bumps for 0.12 (Cory Fields)
+- #6434 `059b352` Preserve user-passed CXXFLAGS with --enable-debug (Gavin Andresen)
+- #6501 `fee6554` Misc build fixes (Cory Fields)
+- #6600 `ef4945f` Include bitcoin-tx binary on Debian/Ubuntu (Zak Wilcox)
+- #6619 `4862708` depends: bump miniupnpc and ccache (Michael Ford)
+- #6801 `ae69a75` [depends] Latest config.guess and config.sub (Michael Ford)
+- #6938 `193f7b5` build: If both Qt4 and Qt5 are installed, use Qt5 (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7092 `348b281` build: Set osx permissions in the dmg to make Gatekeeper happy (Cory Fields)
+- #6980 `eccd671` [Depends] Bump Boost, miniupnpc, ccache & zeromq (Michael Ford)
+- #7424 `aa26ee0` Add security/export checks to gitian and fix current failures (Cory Fields)
+
+### Wallet
+
+- #6183 `87550ee` Fix off-by-one error w/ nLockTime in the wallet (Peter Todd)
+- #6057 `ac5476e` re-enable wallet in autoprune (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6356 `9e6c33b` Delay initial pruning until after wallet init (Adam Weiss)
+- #6088 `91389e5` fundrawtransaction (Matt Corallo)
+- #6415 `ddd8d80` Implement watchonly support in fundrawtransaction (Matt Corallo)
+- #6567 `0f0f323` Fix crash when mining with empty keypool. (Daniel Kraft)
+- #6688 `4939eab` Fix locking in GetTransaction. (Alex Morcos)
+- #6645 `4dbd43e` Enable wallet key imports without rescan in pruned mode. (Gregory Maxwell)
+- #6550 `5b77244` Do not store Merkle branches in the wallet. (Pieter Wuille)
+- #5924 `12a7712` Clean up change computation in CreateTransaction. (Daniel Kraft)
+- #6906 `48b5b84` Reject invalid pubkeys when reading ckey items from the wallet. (Gregory Maxwell)
+- #7010 `e0a5ef8` Fix fundrawtransaction handling of includeWatching (Peter Todd)
+- #6851 `616d61b` Optimisation: Store transaction list order in memory rather than compute it every need (Luke-Jr)
+- #6134 `e92377f` Improve usage of fee estimation code (Alex Morcos)
+- #7103 `a775182` [wallet, rpc tests] Fix settxfee, paytxfee (MarcoFalke)
+- #7105 `30c2d8c` Keep track of explicit wallet conflicts instead of using mempool (Pieter Wuille)
+- #7096 `9490bd7` [Wallet] Improve minimum absolute fee GUI options (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6216 `83f06ca` Take the training wheels off anti-fee-sniping (Peter Todd)
+- #4906 `96e8d12` Issue#1643: Coinselection prunes extraneous inputs from ApproximateBestSubset (Murch)
+- #7200 `06c6a58` Checks for null data transaction before issuing error to debug.log (Andy Craze)
+- #7296 `a36d79b` Add sane fallback for fee estimation (Alex Morcos)
+- #7293 `ff9b610` Add regression test for vValue sort order (MarcoFalke)
+- #7306 `4707797` Make sure conflicted wallet tx's update balances (Alex Morcos)
+- #7381 `621bbd8` [walletdb] Fix syntax error in key parser (MarcoFalke)
+- #7491 `00ec73e` wallet: Ignore MarkConflict if block hash is not known (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7502 `1329963` Update the wallet best block marker before pruning (Pieter Wuille)
+
+### GUI
+
+- #6217 `c57e12a` disconnect peers from peers tab via context menu (Diapolo)
+- #6209 `ab0ec67` extend rpc console peers tab (Diapolo)
+- #6484 `1369d69` use CHashWriter also in SignVerifyMessageDialog (Pavel Vasin)
+- #6487 `9848d42` Introduce PlatformStyle (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6505 `100c9d3` cleanup icons (MarcoFalke)
+- #4587 `0c465f5` allow users to set -onion via GUI (Diapolo)
+- #6529 `c0f66ce` show client user agent in debug window (Diapolo)
+- #6594 `878ea69` Disallow duplicate windows. (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #5665 `6f55cdd` add verifySize() function to PaymentServer (Diapolo)
+- #6317 `ca5e2a1` minor optimisations in peertablemodel (Diapolo)
+- #6315 `e59d2a8` allow banning and unbanning over UI->peers table (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6653 `e04b2fa` Pop debug window in foreground when opened twice (MarcoFalke)
+- #6864 `c702521` Use monospace font (MarcoFalke)
+- #6887 `3694b74` Update coin control and smartfee labels (MarcoFalke)
+- #7000 `814697c` add shortcurts for debug-/console-window (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6951 `03403d8` Use maxTxFee instead of 10000000 (MarcoFalke)
+- #7051 `a190777` ui: Add "Copy raw transaction data" to transaction list context menu (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6979 `776848a` simple mempool info in debug window (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7006 `26af1ac` add startup option to reset Qt settings (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6780 `2a94cd6` Call init's parameter interaction before we create the UI options model (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7112 `96b8025` reduce cs_main locks during tip update, more fluently update UI (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7206 `f43c2f9` Add "NODE_BLOOM" to guiutil so that peers don't get UNKNOWN[4] (Matt Corallo)
+- #7282 `5cadf3e` fix coincontrol update issue when deleting a send coins entry (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7319 `1320300` Intro: Display required space (MarcoFalke)
+- #7318 `9265e89` quickfix for RPC timer interface problem (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7327 `b16b5bc` [Wallet] Transaction View: LastMonth calculation fixed (crowning-)
+- #7364 `7726c48` [qt] Windows: Make rpcconsole monospace font larger (MarcoFalke)
+- #7384 `294f432` [qt] Peertable: Increase SUBVERSION_COLUMN_WIDTH (MarcoFalke)
+
+### Tests and QA
+
+- #6305 `9005c91` build: comparison tool swap (Cory Fields)
+- #6318 `e307e13` build: comparison tool NPE fix (Cory Fields)
+- #6337 `0564c5b` Testing infrastructure: mocktime fixes (Gavin Andresen)
+- #6350 `60abba1` add unit tests for the decodescript rpc (mruddy)
+- #5881 `3203a08` Fix and improve txn_doublespend.py test (Tom Harding)
+- #6390 `6a73d66` tests: Fix bitcoin-tx signing test case (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6368 `7fc25c2` CLTV: Add more tests to improve coverage (Esteban Ordano)
+- #6414 `5121c68` Fix intermittent test failure, reduce test time (Tom Harding)
+- #6417 `44fa82d` [QA] fix possible reorg issue in (fund)rawtransaction(s).py RPC test (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6398 `3d9362d` rpc: Remove chain-specific RequireRPCPassword (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6428 `bb59e78` tests: Remove old sh-based test framework (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #5515 `d946e9a` RFC: Assert on probable deadlocks if the second lock isnt try_lock (Matt Corallo)
+- #6287 `d2464df` Clang lock debug (Cory Fields)
+- #6465 `410fd74` Don't share objects between TestInstances (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6534 `6c1c7fd` Fix test locking issues and un-revert the probable-deadlines assertions commit (Cory Fields)
+- #6509 `bb4faee` Fix race condition on test node shutdown (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6523 `561f8af` Add p2p-fullblocktest.py (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6590 `981fd92` Fix stale socket rebinding and re-enable python tests for Windows (Cory Fields)
+- #6730 `cb4d6d0` build: Remove dependency of bitcoin-cli on secp256k1 (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6616 `5ab5dca` Regression Tests: Migrated rpc-tests.sh to all Python rpc-tests.py (Peter Tschipper)
+- #6720 `d479311` Creates unittests for addrman, makes addrman more testable. (Ethan Heilman)
+- #6853 `c834f56` Added fPowNoRetargeting field to Consensus::Params (Eric Lombrozo)
+- #6827 `87e5539` [rpc-tests] Check return code (MarcoFalke)
+- #6848 `f2c869a` Add DERSIG transaction test cases (Ross Nicoll)
+- #6813 `5242bb3` Support gathering code coverage data for RPC tests with lcov (dexX7)
+- #6888 `c8322ff` Clear strMiscWarning before running PartitionAlert (Eric Lombrozo)
+- #6894 `2675276` [Tests] Fix BIP65 p2p test (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #6863 `725539e` [Test Suite] Fix test for null tx input (Daniel Kraft)
+- #6926 `a6d0d62` tests: Initialize networking on windows (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6822 `9fa54a1` [tests] Be more strict checking dust (MarcoFalke)
+- #6804 `5fcc14e` [tests] Add basic coverage reporting for RPC tests (James O'Beirne)
+- #7045 `72dccfc` Bugfix: Use unique autostart filenames on Linux for testnet/regtest (Luke-Jr)
+- #7095 `d8368a0` Replace scriptnum_test's normative ScriptNum implementation (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7063 `6abf6eb` [Tests] Add prioritisetransaction RPC test (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #7137 `16f4a6e` Tests: Explicitly set chain limits in replace-by-fee test (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #7216 `9572e49` Removed offline testnet DNSSeed 'alexykot.me'. (tnull)
+- #7209 `f3ad812` test: don't override BITCOIND and BITCOINCLI if they're set (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7226 `301f16a` Tests: Add more tests to p2p-fullblocktest (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #7153 `9ef7c54` [Tests] Add mempool_limit.py test (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #7170 `453c567` tests: Disable Tor interaction (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7229 `1ed938b` [qa] wallet: Check if maintenance changes the balance (MarcoFalke)
+- #7308 `d513405` [Tests] Eliminate intermittent failures in sendheaders.py (Suhas Daftuar)
+- #7468 `947c4ff` [rpc-tests] Change solve() to use rehash (Brad Andrews)
+
+### Miscellaneous
+
+- #6213 `e54ff2f` [init] add -blockversion help and extend -upnp help (Diapolo)
+- #5975 `1fea667` Consensus: Decouple ContextualCheckBlockHeader from checkpoints (Jorge Timón)
+- #6061 `eba2f06` Separate Consensus::CheckTxInputs and GetSpendHeight in CheckInputs (Jorge Timón)
+- #5994 `786ed11` detach wallet from miner (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6387 `11576a5` [bitcoin-cli] improve error output (Jonas Schnelli)
+- #6401 `6db53b4` Add BITCOIND_SIGTERM_TIMEOUT to OpenRC init scripts (Florian Schmaus)
+- #6430 `b01981e` doc: add documentation for shared library libbitcoinconsensus (Braydon Fuller)
+- #6372 `dcc495e` Update Linearize tool to support Windows paths; fix variable scope; update README and example configuration (Paul Georgiou)
+- #6453 `8fe5cce` Separate core memory usage computation in core_memusage.h (Pieter Wuille)
+- #6149 `633fe10` Buffer log messages and explicitly open logs (Adam Weiss)
+- #6488 `7cbed7f` Avoid leaking file descriptors in RegisterLoad (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6497 `a2bf40d` Make sure LogPrintf strings are line-terminated (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6504 `b6fee6b` Rationalize currency unit to "BTC" (Ross Nicoll)
+- #6507 `9bb4dd8` Removed contrib/bitrpc (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6527 `41d650f` Use unique name for AlertNotify tempfile (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6561 `e08a7d9` limitedmap fixes and tests (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6565 `a6f2aff` Make sure we re-acquire lock if a task throws (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6599 `f4d88c4` Make sure LogPrint strings are line-terminated (Ross Nicoll)
+- #6630 `195942d` Replace boost::reverse_lock with our own (Casey Rodarmor)
+- #6103 `13b8282` Add ZeroMQ notifications (João Barbosa)
+- #6692 `d5d1d2e` devtools: don't push if signing fails in github-merge (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6728 `2b0567b` timedata: Prevent warning overkill (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6713 `f6ce59c` SanitizeString: Allow hypen char (MarcoFalke)
+- #5987 `4899a04` Bugfix: Fix testnet-in-a-box use case (Luke-Jr)
+- #6733 `b7d78fd` Simple benchmarking framework (Gavin Andresen)
+- #6854 `a092970` devtools: Add security-check.py (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #6790 `fa1d252` devtools: add clang-format.py (MarcoFalke)
+- #7114 `f3d0fdd` util: Don't set strMiscWarning on every exception (Wladimir J. van der Laan)
+- #7078 `93e0514` uint256::GetCheapHash bigendian compatibility (arowser)
+- #7094 `34e02e0` Assert now > 0 in GetTime GetTimeMillis GetTimeMicros (Patrick Strateman)
+
+Credits
+=======
+
+Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:
+
+- accraze
+- Adam Weiss
+- Alex Morcos
+- Alex van der Peet
+- AlSzacrel
+- Altoidnerd
+- Andriy Voskoboinyk
+- antonio-fr
+- Arne Brutschy
+- Ashley Holman
+- Bob McElrath
+- Braydon Fuller
+- BtcDrak
+- Casey Rodarmor
+- centaur1
+- Chris Kleeschulte
+- Christian Decker
+- Cory Fields
+- crowning-
+- daniel
+- Daniel Cousens
+- Daniel Kraft
+- David Hill
+- dexX7
+- Diego Viola
+- Elias Rohrer
+- Eric Lombrozo
+- Erik Mossberg
+- Esteban Ordano
+- EthanHeilman
+- Florian Schmaus
+- Forrest Voight
+- Gavin Andresen
+- Gregory Maxwell
+- Gregory Sanders / instagibbs
+- Ian T
+- Irving Ruan
+- Jacob Welsh
+- James O'Beirne
+- Jeff Garzik
+- Johnathan Corgan
+- Jonas Schnelli
+- Jonathan Cross
+- João Barbosa
+- Jorge Timón
+- Josh Lehan
+- J Ross Nicoll
+- kazcw
+- Kevin Cooper
+- lpescher
+- Luke Dashjr
+- MarcoFalke
+- Mark Friedenbach
+- Matt
+- Matt Bogosian
+- Matt Corallo
+- Matt Quinn
+- Micha
+- Michael
+- Michael Ford / fanquake
+- Midnight Magic
+- Mitchell Cash
+- mrbandrews
+- mruddy
+- Nick
+- Patrick Strateman
+- Paul Georgiou
+- Paul Rabahy
+- Pavel Janík / paveljanik
+- Pavel Vasin
+- Pavol Rusnak
+- Peter Josling
+- Peter Todd
+- Philip Kaufmann
+- Pieter Wuille
+- ptschip
+- randy-waterhouse
+- rion
+- Ross Nicoll
+- Ryan Havar
+- Shaul Kfir
+- Simon Males
+- Stephen
+- Suhas Daftuar
+- tailsjoin
+- Thomas Kerin
+- Tom Harding
+- tulip
+- unsystemizer
+- Veres Lajos
+- Wladimir J. van der Laan
+- xor-freenet
+- Zak Wilcox
+- zathras-crypto
+
+As well as everyone that helped translating on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/bitcoin/).
+
+
diff --git a/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.12.1.md b/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.12.1.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..610cd481de
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.12.1.md
@@ -0,0 +1,198 @@
+Bitcoin Core version 0.12.1 is now available from:
+
+  <https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.12.1/>
+
+This is a new minor version release, including the BIP9, BIP68 and BIP112
+softfork, various bugfixes and updated translations.
+
+Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github:
+
+  <https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues>
+
+Upgrading and downgrading
+=========================
+
+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).
+
+Downgrade warning
+-----------------
+
+### Downgrade to a version < 0.12.0
+
+Because release 0.12.0 and later will obfuscate the chainstate on every
+fresh sync or reindex, the chainstate is not backwards-compatible with
+pre-0.12 versions of Bitcoin Core or other software.
+
+If you want to downgrade after you have done a reindex with 0.12.0 or later,
+you will need to reindex when you first start Bitcoin Core version 0.11 or
+earlier.
+
+Notable changes
+===============
+
+First version bits BIP9 softfork deployment
+-------------------------------------------
+
+This release includes a soft fork deployment to enforce [BIP68][],
+[BIP112][] and [BIP113][] using the [BIP9][] deployment mechanism.
+
+The deployment sets the block version number to 0x20000001 between
+midnight 1st May 2016 and midnight 1st May 2017 to signal readiness for 
+deployment. The version number consists of 0x20000000 to indicate version
+bits together with setting bit 0 to indicate support for this combined
+deployment, shown as "csv" in the `getblockchaininfo` RPC call.
+
+For more information about the soft forking change, please see
+<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7648>
+
+This specific backport pull-request can be viewed at
+<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7543>
+
+[BIP9]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0009.mediawiki
+[BIP68]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0068.mediawiki
+[BIP112]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0112.mediawiki
+[BIP113]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0113.mediawiki
+
+BIP68 soft fork to enforce sequence locks for relative locktime
+---------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[BIP68][] introduces relative lock-time consensus-enforced semantics of
+the sequence number field to enable a signed transaction input to remain
+invalid for a defined period of time after confirmation of its corresponding
+outpoint.
+
+For more information about the implementation, see
+<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7184>
+
+BIP112 soft fork to enforce OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+[BIP112][] redefines the existing OP_NOP3 as OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY (CSV)
+for a new opcode in the Bitcoin scripting system that in combination with
+[BIP68][] allows execution pathways of a script to be restricted based
+on the age of the output being spent.
+
+For more information about the implementation, see
+<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7524>
+
+BIP113 locktime enforcement soft fork
+-------------------------------------
+
+Bitcoin Core 0.11.2 previously introduced mempool-only locktime
+enforcement using GetMedianTimePast(). This release seeks to
+consensus enforce the rule.
+
+Bitcoin transactions currently may specify a locktime indicating when
+they may be added to a valid block.  Current consensus rules require
+that blocks have a block header time greater than the locktime specified
+in any transaction in that block.
+
+Miners get to choose what time they use for their header time, with the
+consensus rule being that no node will accept a block whose time is more
+than two hours in the future.  This creates a incentive for miners to
+set their header times to future values in order to include locktimed
+transactions which weren't supposed to be included for up to two more
+hours.
+
+The consensus rules also specify that valid blocks may have a header
+time greater than that of the median of the 11 previous blocks.  This
+GetMedianTimePast() time has a key feature we generally associate with
+time: it can't go backwards.
+
+[BIP113][] specifies a soft fork enforced in this release that
+weakens this perverse incentive for individual miners to use a future
+time by requiring that valid blocks have a computed GetMedianTimePast()
+greater than the locktime specified in any transaction in that block.
+
+Mempool inclusion rules currently require transactions to be valid for
+immediate inclusion in a block in order to be accepted into the mempool.
+This release begins applying the BIP113 rule to received transactions,
+so transaction whose time is greater than the GetMedianTimePast() will
+no longer be accepted into the mempool.
+
+**Implication for miners:** you will begin rejecting transactions that
+would not be valid under BIP113, which will prevent you from producing
+invalid blocks when BIP113 is enforced on the network. Any
+transactions which are valid under the current rules but not yet valid
+under the BIP113 rules will either be mined by other miners or delayed
+until they are valid under BIP113. Note, however, that time-based
+locktime transactions are more or less unseen on the network currently.
+
+**Implication for users:** GetMedianTimePast() always trails behind the
+current time, so a transaction locktime set to the present time will be
+rejected by nodes running this release until the median time moves
+forward. To compensate, subtract one hour (3,600 seconds) from your
+locktimes to allow those transactions to be included in mempools at
+approximately the expected time.
+
+For more information about the implementation, see
+<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6566>
+
+Miscellaneous
+-------------
+
+The p2p alert system is off by default. To turn on, use `-alert` with
+startup configuration.
+
+0.12.1 Change log
+=================
+
+Detailed release notes follow. This overview includes changes that affect
+behavior, not code moves, refactors and string updates. For convenience in locating
+the code changes and accompanying discussion, both the pull request and
+git merge commit are mentioned.
+
+### RPC and other APIs
+- #7739 `7ffc2bd` Add abandoned status to listtransactions (jonasschnelli)
+
+### Block and transaction handling
+- #7543 `834aaef` Backport BIP9, BIP68 and BIP112 with softfork (btcdrak)
+
+### P2P protocol and network code
+- #7804 `90f1d24` Track block download times per individual block (sipa)
+- #7832 `4c3a00d` Reduce block timeout to 10 minutes (laanwj)
+
+### Validation
+- #7821 `4226aac` init: allow shutdown during 'Activating best chain...' (laanwj)
+- #7835 `46898e7` Version 2 transactions remain non-standard until CSV activates (sdaftuar)
+
+### Build system
+- #7487 `00d57b4` Workaround Travis-side CI issues (luke-jr)
+- #7606 `a10da9a` No need to set -L and --location for curl (MarcoFalke)
+- #7614 `ca8f160` Add curl to packages (now needed for depends) (luke-jr)
+- #7776 `a784675` Remove unnecessary executables from gitian release (laanwj)
+
+### Wallet
+- #7715 `19866c1` Fix calculation of balances and available coins. (morcos)
+
+### Miscellaneous
+- #7617 `f04f4fd` Fix markdown syntax and line terminate LogPrint (MarcoFalke)
+- #7747 `4d035bc` added depends cross compile info (accraze)
+- #7741 `a0cea89` Mark p2p alert system as deprecated (btcdrak)
+- #7780 `c5f94f6` Disable bad-chain alert (btcdrak)
+
+Credits
+=======
+
+Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:
+
+- accraze
+- Alex Morcos
+- BtcDrak
+- Jonas Schnelli
+- Luke Dashjr
+- MarcoFalke
+- Mark Friedenbach
+- NicolasDorier
+- Pieter Wuille
+- Suhas Daftuar
+- Wladimir J. van der Laan
+
+As well as everyone that helped translating on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/bitcoin/).
+