Bitcoin Core 0.16.0 arrived in late February. The development team has spent months refining and stress-testing new features for this software client, which Satoshi Nakamoto originally wrote. Prices s
Bitcoin Core 0.16.0 arrived in late February. The development team has spent months refining and stress-testing new features for this software client, which Satoshi Nakamoto originally wrote. Prices swung, pessimistic forecasts filled the news, but the developers continued working on improvements to the underlying protocol.
Segregated Witness activated on the network in 2017. This protocol overhaul changed how transactions get processed, cutting the data that validators commit to the blockchain while introducing block weight and expanding total capacity. As exchanges implemented the change, several major platforms began passing fee savings to their customers. This cost reduction created momentum for wider adoption.
Segwit-P2SH addresses have existed since Bitcoin Core 0.15.0, though accessing them required typing a technical command into the wallet. Version 0.16.0 changes that dynamic. The new default address format is segwit-P2SH. Users who prefer native segwit (bech-32) or the traditional legacy format can select their preference through a checkbox in the wallet interface.
Bech-32 addresses start with bc1, per BIP 173, authored by Pieter Wuille and Gregory Maxwell. For nine years, Bitcoin addresses used mixed-case letters in their encoding. Bech-32 discards this convention. When users read and type addresses without case sensitivity, they make fewer errors. The format supports more efficient QR codes and adds error detection for invalid addresses, a practical protection for users moving funds between wallets.
An example bech-32 address: bc1quq9mac28s6xaf3mkc8nqw6vk9unwxvfkfnd3mk
Replace by Fee, the function that allows users to bump transaction fees on stuck transactions, becomes the default in Bitcoin Core 0.16.0. The final months of 2017 brought a surge in network activity. Fees spiked and users gravitated to RBF as a way to ensure unconfirmed transactions wouldn't languish in the mempool. Previously, wallet software made RBF opt-in only. That has flipped. Users who don't want their transactions to be replaceable must now express that preference.
Nearly 100 developers contributed directly to this release. The log of individual code changes spans an enormous range. Bitcoin Core exemplifies what happens when distributed teams coordinate on open-source software. This version marks a milestone in the segregated witness story. Years of development targeted transaction malleability, a technical problem that developers first documented in BIP 141 back in 2015.
