Key Takeaways:
- After Bitcoin Core 22.0, its “next major release” is here.
- Zhixiong Pan discovered that Bitcoin 23.0 was released without any announcement from the team.
- The latest version includes significant changes that seem to be more user-friendly.
Bitcoin developers’ long-kept secret is finally out on the internet. Digital currency has been performing quite well recently. But its development team seems to be fetching for more. Earlier today, the Bitcoin Core Team shared a tweet announcing the release of the 23.0 version. However, it should be noted that the official launch date of the latest version is not April 25, 2022.
The release was done silently and was later discovered by Zhi Xiong Pan, a Web 3.0 developer and researcher. He stumbled upon this version while searching the GitHub repository and then shared details about the features of the new release. Though the developer mentions that this new launch holds “no particularly significant new features”, this is the first version of Bitcoin Core that can “natively support Apple Silicon (M1 family) chips.”
In a Twitter thread, Zhixiong shares more information about Bitcoin 23.0 along with the source code of the same. On the GitHub platform, a release note on the new version of the Bitcoin core is available for the users. It talks about new features, bug fixes, improvements in performance, and also updated translations.
Users of the older version can upgrade easily by running the installer on Windows or by copying over “/Applications/Bitcoin-Qt” on Mac and “bitcoin/bitcoin-qt” over Linux only after ensuring that the older version is completely shut down.
The concern of compatibility has also been solved by the team as the note reads “Bitcoin Core is supported and extensively tested on operating systems using the Linux kernel, macOS 10.15+, and Windows 7 and newer.” The latest version is also expected to operate on most systems that are similar to Unix. However, it has been advised to not use Bitcoin Core on “unsupported systems.”
There are other notable changes in Bitcoin 23.0.
- First, the Bitcoin node will stop spreading addresses automatically to inbound peers and users will have access to “address gossip” only after sending ADDR, ADDRV2, or GETADDR messages.
- The second update includes the removal of the preference that was given to peers who listen to 8333. Earlier, this rule was causing hindrance in connecting Bitcoin nodes that were listening to non-standard ports.
- Third, full support has been added for the CJDNS network and it can be viewed at “-cjdnsreachable.”
- Other changes include the removal of the rescan startup parameter. The few estimations will now also take into consideration the fee rate of replacement (RBF).
The release of the Bitcoin 23.0 was true to its release schedule. It was proposed on September 14, 2021, and was aimed to be released after 7 months instead of the customary 6 months.
