Dimitri-H / Bit-Block.org (@GraciousInterests)

Bit-Block V2 — Release Notes Bit-Block V2 is now available. This release focuses on transparency, long-term reliability, and cleaning up a few rough edges left over from the initial fork. Below is a plain-English summary of what changed. What's new in V2 A friendlier approach to old software Earlier Bit-Block builds inherited a feature from Bitcoin Knots that would cause the node to simply stop working roughly two years after its build date — refusing to start, and refusing to accept new blocks (Luke Dash Jr's "timebomb" which is present in ALL Bitcoin Knots releases). This originated from a Bitcoin Core pull request (#10282, by Luke Dashjr, who also maintains Bitcoin Knots) that was proposed and ultimately rejected by Core's own reviewers, one of whom said they'd be happier if it simply warned the user rather than shutting the node down. (See: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/10282 ) We took that advice. Bit-Block now shows a one-time, friendly reminder after two years suggesting you consider upgrading — nothing more. The node keeps validating blocks and running exactly as normal; there is no shutdown and no refusal to sync, ever. More efficient local database maintenance Bit-Block's local chainstate database (which tracks every unspent bitcoin) was being rewritten far more often than necessary, due to an overly aggressive LevelDB behavior that triggered extra disk writes roughly every hour. This is now replaced with a lighter, randomized cleanup pass roughly every two weeks — less wear on your disk, with no change to correctness. This mirrors a fix already adopted by Bitcoin Knots itself. These changes were present in the Bitcoin Knots V29.x releases as well Bitcoin Core V31. Due to Bit-Block being a fork of Bitcoin Knots V28.x was this important update not included in V1. Corrected copyright year The splash screen previously displayed an outdated copyright range. This is now accurate. Simpler version display Rather than showing a long, confusing version string everywhere (splash screen, About dialog, command-line --version output), Bit-Block now displays a simple release number — "V2" for this release — that will be incremented with each future build. The full technical version remains available in the background for support and debugging purposes; it just isn't put in front of everyday users anymore. Verification The Bitcoin Core pull request referenced above (Bitcoin Core pull request #10282, by Luke Dashjr) can be viewed directly for independent verification: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/10282 Upgrading Existing users can simply install the new build over the previous version. No wallet or chainstate migration is required