Litecoin Core 0.18.1 RC1 has been published.

After almost a year of work, the 0.18.1 release candidate (RC1) has finally been released. Commenting on the announcement, Adrian Gallagher, lead developer on the project, wrote:

“We are excited to release the Litecoin Core 0.18.1 release candidate. This is a major new version release with new features, various bug fixes, performance improvements, and updated translations.”

Among the changes are the depreciation of the typical plethora of new RPCs and many others, along with improvements to block and transaction processing, network code and P2P protocols, GUI, wallets and build systems. This major release includes over 100 changes. A full list of more detailed changes can be found in Gallagher’s blog post.

Since this is a release candidate, there may still be issues, so people who want to help and test the build before the final public release should be careful and back up all wallet.dat files. The Github link for testing can be found here.

In his post, Gallagher also touched on future plans, releases, and timelines, including specifically a jump to 0.19 and a jump straight to v0.20.

“Starting with version 0.16.0, Litecoin Core’s built-in wallet defaults to generating a P2SH-wrapped SegWit address when a user wants to receive a payment. These addresses are backward compatible with all popular software. Starting with Litecoin Core 0.20 (expected about a year after 0.18), Litecoin Core will default to the default SegWit address (bech32), which will provide additional fee savings and other benefits.”

According to data provided by Blockchair, Core currently accounts for over 90% of the entire network, with the latest build 0.17.1 accounting for around 50%. Additionally, more than half of the network appears to run in the United States, Germany, and France, but this does not account for all available connections or TOR-supported nodes, with these countries being popular exit points.

The core is the backbone of the network, allowing businesses to retrieve and process data as well as day-to-day operations. Updates like these are critical to the health and evolution of the network, and users who choose to run full nodes help signal their votes on the direction of the project by verifying their own blockchain instance and setting the rules. The latest Core release can be downloaded via Litecoin.com.