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In this episode of “Bitcoin, Explained,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Bitcoin Core’s next major release, Bitcoin Core 24.0.
The Bitcoin Core project produces a major new version of its software approximately every six months. The 24th major version is currently in its release candidate phase, which means it’s being tested and could technically be released any day now (although that phase will probably last a few more weeks). In the episode, van Wirdum and Provoost discuss seven of the most notable changes included in Bitcoin Core 24.0.
This includes a change in the way nodes download blocks when syncing with the network. While previous versions of Bitcoin Core started by downloading only block headers to ensure that the blocks they download have enough proof-of-work, Bitcoin Core 24.0 nodes will initially not store these block headers to avoid a certain type of ‘resource exhaustion attack. Van Wirdum and Provoost explain that this should also eventually allow the removal of any checkpoints in the Bitcoin Core codebase.
They go on to explain that Bitcoin Core 24.0 also includes an additional option for users to implement full replacement-by-fee (RBF) logic. Until now, Bitcoin Core nodes enforced the “first use” rule, which meant that conflicting transactions would not be accepted into the node’s memory pool (mempool) and sent to peers. With this next release, users can choose to make their nodes accept and forward conflicting transactions if they include a higher fee than the previous conflicting transaction(s).
Additional updates discussed by van Wirdum and Provoost include a tool to migrate legacy wallets to descriptor wallets, initial miniscript support, default use of RBF when creating transactions, an improved unspent transaction output (UTXO) selection algorithm which randomizes the output amounts of changes for more privacy and a new “send all” feature to spend a particular (set of) UTXO(s).
