Bitcoin Core Version 29.1 Release Candidate Announced
The Bitcoin Core development team has announced a candidate version for a new minor release, designated as version 29.1. This software serves a crucial role in maintaining the foundational infrastructure of the Bitcoin network, which operates as the predominant open-source blockchain platform. Typically, release candidates like this one advance to official updates unless any significant bugs are identified during the testing phase.
Enhancements and Key Changes
This latest version follows the earlier release of Bitcoin Core v28.2, which took place on June 30, about a month prior. With the current update, users can expect a series of enhancements, including fixes for bugs and improvements in performance.
A key change involves the classification of standard transactions, particularly those that incorporate an unusually high volume of legacy signature operations—referred to as “sigops”. Under the new rules, transactions containing more than 2,500 sigops will be marked as nonstandard by various nodes. This approach helps to mitigate the risk of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on miners who have not upgraded their software, as harmful transactions will no longer overburden nodes with excessive operations. It’s important to understand that while miners may continue to include nonstandard transactions, these will not be propagated by default across standard nodes.
Compatibility and Security Improvements
Additionally, the update addresses compatibility issues for users running older 32-bit systems. This includes safeguards against setting high memory parameters that could destabilize the Bitcoin Core application. Users will also benefit from wallet-related improvements, such as enhancements aimed at preventing crashes during rare events related to blockchain reorganization, and ensuring accurate wallet version listings in system logs.
In terms of security, the update restricts nodes from utilizing certain network ports, specifically RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) at port 3389 and VNC (Virtual Network Computing) at port 5900, to reduce potential security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, it eliminates a faulty random number generation feature that was affecting a subset of ARM devices.
