Bitcoin Core developers announce the release of a version of the code of the most popular cryptocurrency on the market, to guarantee greater speed, performance and privacy for its users.
Bitcoin, The first cryptocurrency created in the world, and the most popular and important on the market, still does not have a version 1.0, but this does not mean that its developers do not continue working to innovate and develop this powerful digital tool. Recently, the mineros of the network approved unanimously the activation of tap root within the Bitcoin code, a protocol that will provide the network with greater privacy and security, and will also allow its developers to create and implement smart contracts complex, thanks to the integration of the Schnorr firms within this protocol.
Thus, taking a firm step towards the integration of this update, Bitcoin is preparing for its new version of Bitcoin Core, the largest implementation of Bitcoin, and the best known in the digital world. The new update to the Bitcoin code, the version 0.21.0, promises to provide the network with greater privacy and performance, thanks to the integration of several improvements, among which the new Tor addresses stand out, which incorporate optimized messages to facilitate greater interaction between the nodes of the network.
One of the developers in charge of the new version, Wladimir J. Van Der Laan, the actual lead maintainer of Bitcoin Core, published a document about the new version on the Linux Foundation forum, where it explains that v0.21.0 of Bitcoin “includes new features, various bug fixes and improvements” that will optimize the operation and performance of the network.
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Taproot, an update that is getting closer
First, Van Der Laan announced that the biggest changes center on the way the mempool tracks transactions sent from wallets or RPC calls, to verify whether they have been successfully broadcast on the network. The developer explains that now, nodes will verify and announce, every 10 or 15 minutes, unbroadcasted transactions, until a peer requests them via a message "getdata» or the transaction is removed from the mempool for other reasons.
Likewise, the new version of Bitcoin includes a reduction in the size of the set of transactions that peers have announced, going from a size of 100.000 to 5.000 per peer, to make the network's mempool more efficient. Also, another of the important changes announced within v0.21.0 is the implementation of the Taproot consensus rules proposed in the BIP-341. Thus, the implementation of this update, one of the most important for the Bitcoin network, is getting closer to being consolidated, although its activation on the mainnet has not yet been defined.
Enhanced privacy and security
Taproot promises to exponentially increase the scalability of the Bitcoin network while ensuring greater privacy and security. The protocol will also allow users to prove their ownership of a certain amount of bitcoins without having to reveal their location, as Marty Bent said in a statement. publication recently. Bent, the editor-in-chief of the daily Bitcoin newsletter Marty's Ƀent, noted that one of the interesting things Taproot can do when active within Bitcoin is “prove that they own a certain amount of bitcoins without revealing at which addresses the UTXOs are located.”
Bent also highlighted that the new version of Bitcoin's code has improvements that make the cryptocurrency easier to use, more robust and private.
Bitcoin-related developers and projects are receiving great support from funding and grant organizations and companies. For example, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announced the delivery of financial resources, worth $25.000 USD for the software developer Ben Kaufman and for the team of Global Mesh Labs, who are building various improvements to Bitcoin Core. Square Crypto also gave a grant to developer Fi3, who will work on developing the new version of the Bitcoin mining software, Stratum v2, to allow miners connected to a mining pool to optimize their performance. hash rate.
Continue reading: Square Crypto finances development of Stratum v2 for greater freedom and security for Bitcoin miners