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@@ -47,31 +47,261 @@ 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 is supported and extensively tested on operating systems using
+the Linux kernel, macOS 10.10+, 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
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.
+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. 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 also provides binaries for the RISC-V
+platform.
Notable changes
===============
-Command line option changes
----------------------------
+Mining
+------
+
+- Calls to `getblocktemplate` will fail if the segwit rule is not specified.
+ Calling `getblocktemplate` without segwit specified is almost certainly
+ a misconfiguration since doing so results in lower rewards for the miner.
+ Failed calls will produce an error message describing how to enable the
+ segwit rule.
+
+Configuration option changes
+----------------------------
+
+- A warning is printed if an unrecognized section name is used in the
+ configuration file. Recognized sections are `[test]`, `[main]`, and
+ `[regtest]`.
+
+- Four new options are available for configuring the maximum number of
+ messages that ZMQ will queue in memory (the "high water mark") before
+ dropping additional messages. The default value is 1,000, the same as
+ was used for previous releases. See the [ZMQ
+ documentation](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/zmq.md#usage)
+ for details.
+
+- The `enablebip61` 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.
+
+- The `rpcallowip` option can no longer be used to automatically listen
+ on all network interfaces. Instead, the `rpcbind` parameter must also
+ be used to specify the IP addresses to listen on. Listening for RPC
+ commands over a public network connection is insecure and should be
+ disabled, so a warning is now printed if a user selects such a
+ configuration. If you need to expose RPC in order to use a tool
+ like Docker, ensure you only bind RPC to your localhost, e.g. `docker
+ run [...] -p 127.0.0.1:8332:8332` (this is an extra `:8332` over the
+ normal Docker port specification).
+
+- The `rpcpassword` option now causes a startup error if the password
+ set in the configuration file contains a hash character (#), as it's
+ ambiguous whether the hash character is meant for the password or as a
+ comment.
+
+Documentation
+-------------
+
+- A new short
+ [document](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/JSON-RPC-interface.md)
+ about the JSON-RPC interface describes cases where the results of an
+ RPC might contain inconsistencies between data sourced from different
+ subsystems, such as wallet state and mempool state. A note is added
+ to the [REST interface documentation](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/REST-interface.md)
+ indicating that the same rules apply.
+
+- A new [document](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/bitcoin-conf.md)
+ about the `bitcoin.conf` file describes how to use it to configure
+ Bitcoin Core.
+
+- A new document introduces Bitcoin Core's BIP174
+ [Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT)](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/psbt.md)
+ interface, which is used to allow multiple programs to collaboratively
+ work to create, sign, and broadcast new transactions. This is useful
+ for offline (cold storage) wallets, multisig wallets, coinjoin
+ implementations, and many other cases where two or more programs need
+ to interact to generate a complete transaction.
-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.
+- The [output script descriptor](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/descriptors.md)
+ documentation has been updated with information about new features in
+ this still-developing language for describing the output scripts that
+ a wallet or other program wants to receive notifications for, such as
+ which addresses it wants to know received payments. The language is
+ currently used in the `scantxoutset` RPC and is expected to be adapted
+ to other RPCs and to the underlying wallet structure.
-Example item
+Build system changes
+--------------------
+
+- A new `--disable-bip70` option may be passed to `./configure` to
+ prevent Bitcoin-Qt from being built with support for the BIP70 payment
+ protocol or from linking libssl. As the payment protocol has exposed
+ Bitcoin Core to libssl vulnerabilities in the past, builders who don't
+ need BIP70 support are encouraged to use this option to reduce their
+ exposure to future vulnerabilities.
+
+Deprecated or removed RPCs
+--------------------------
+
+- The `signrawtransaction` RPC is removed after being deprecated and
+ hidden behind a special configuration option in version 0.17.0.
+
+- The 'account' API is removed after being deprecated in v0.17. The
+ 'label' API was introduced in v0.17 as a replacement for accounts.
+ See the [release notes from v0.17](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.17.0.md#label-and-account-apis-for-wallet)
+ for a full description of the changes from the 'account' API to the
+ 'label' API.
+
+- The `addwitnessaddress` RPC is removed after being deprecated in
+ version 0.13.0.
+
+- The wallet's `generate` RPC method is deprecated and will be fully
+ removed in a subsequent major version. This RPC is only used for
+ testing, but its implementation reached across multiple subsystems
+ (wallet and mining), so it is being deprecated to simplify the
+ wallet-node interface. Projects that are using `generate` for testing
+ purposes should transition to using the `generatetoaddress` RPC, which
+ does not require or use the wallet component. Calling
+ `generatetoaddress` with an address returned by the `getnewaddress`
+ RPC gives the same functionality as the old `generate` RPC. To
+ continue using `generate` in this version, restart bitcoind with the
+ `-deprecatedrpc=generate` configuration option.
+
+New RPCs
+--------
+
+- A new `getnodeaddresses` RPC returns peer addresses known to this
+ node. It may be used to find nodes to connect to without using a DNS
+ seeder.
+
+- A new `listwalletdir` RPC returns a list of wallets in the wallet
+ directory (either the default wallet directory or the directory
+ configured by the `-walletdir` parameter).
+
+Updated RPCs
------------
+Note: some low-level RPC changes mainly useful for testing are described
+in the Low-level Changes section below.
+
+- The `getpeerinfo` RPC now returns an additional `minfeefilter` field
+ set to the peer's BIP133 fee filter. You can use this to detect that
+ you have peers that are willing to accept transactions below the
+ default minimum relay fee.
+
+- The mempool RPCs, such as `getrawmempool` with `verbose=true`, now
+ return an additional "bip125-replaceable" value indicating whether the
+ transaction (or its unconfirmed ancestors) opts-in to asking nodes and
+ miners to replace it with a higher-feerate transaction spending any of
+ the same inputs.
+
+- The `settxfee` RPC previously silently ignored attempts to set the fee
+ below the allowed minimums. It now prints a warning. The special
+ value of "0" may still be used to request the minimum value.
+
+- The `getaddressinfo` RPC now provides an `ischange` field indicating
+ whether the wallet used the address in a change output.
+
+- The `importmulti` RPC has been updated to support P2WSH, P2WPKH,
+ P2SH-P2WPKH, and P2SH-P2WSH. Requests for P2WSH and P2SH-P2WSH accept
+ an additional `witnessscript` parameter.
+
+- The `importmulti` RPC now returns an additional `warnings` field for
+ each request with an array of strings explaining when fields are being
+ ignored or are inconsistent, if there are any.
+
+- The `getaddressinfo` RPC now returns an additional `solvable` boolean
+ field when Bitcoin Core knows enough about the address's scriptPubKey,
+ optional redeemScript, and optional witnessScript in order for the
+ wallet to be able to generate an unsigned input spending funds sent to
+ that address.
+
+- The `getaddressinfo`, `listunspent`, and `scantxoutset` RPCs now
+ return an additional `desc` field that contains an output descriptor
+ containing all key paths and signing information for the address
+ (except for the private key). The `desc` field is only returned for
+ `getaddressinfo` and `listunspent` when the address is solvable.
+
+- The `importprivkey` RPC will preserve previously-set labels for
+ addresses or public keys corresponding to the private key being
+ imported. For example, if you imported a watch-only address with the
+ label "cold wallet" in earlier releases of Bitcoin Core, subsequently
+ importing the private key would default to resetting the address's
+ label to the default empty-string label (""). In this release, the
+ previous label of "cold wallet" will be retained. If you optionally
+ specify any label besides the default when calling `importprivkey`,
+ the new label will be applied to the address.
+
+- See the [Mining](#mining) section for changes to `getblocktemplate`.
+
+Graphical User Interface (GUI)
+------------------------------
+
+- A new Window menu is added alongside the existing File, Settings, and
+ Help menus. Several items from the other menus that opened new
+ windows have been moved to this new Window menu.
+
+- In the Send tab, the checkbox for "pay only the required fee"
+ has been removed. Instead, the user can simply decrease the value in
+ the Custom Feerate field all the way down to the node's configured
+ minimum relay fee.
+
+- In the Overview tab, the watch-only balance will be the only
+ balance shown if the wallet was created using the `createwallet` RPC
+ and the `disable_private_keys` parameter was set to true.
+
+- The launch-on-startup option is no longer available on macOS if
+ compiled with macosx min version greater than 10.11 (use
+ CXXFLAGS="-mmacosx-version-min=10.11"
+ CFLAGS="-mmacosx-version-min=10.11" for setting the deployment
+ sdk version)
+
+Low-level changes
+=================
+
+RPC
+---
+
+- The `submitblock` RPC previously returned the reason a rejected block
+ was invalid the first time it processed that block but returned a
+ generic "duplicate" rejection message on subsequent occasions it
+ processed the same block. It now always returns the fundamental
+ reason for rejecting an invalid block and only returns "duplicate" for
+ valid blocks it has already accepted.
+
+- A new `submitheader` RPC allows submitting block headers independently
+ from their block. This is likely only useful for testing.
+
+Configuration
+-------------
+
+- The `-usehd` configuration option was removed in version 0.16. From
+ that version onwards, all new wallets created are hierarchical
+ deterministic wallets. This release makes specifying `-usehd` an
+ invalid configuration option.
+
+Changes for particular platforms
+--------------------------------
+
+- On macOS, Bitcoin Core now opts out of application CPU throttling
+ ("app nap") during initial blockchain download, when catching up from
+ over 100 blocks behind the current chain tip, or when reindexing chain
+ data. This helps prevent these operations from taking an excessively
+ long time because the operating system is attempting to conserve
+ power.
+
Credits
=======