Dogecoin Core 1.10 Beta 1

Dogecoin 1.10 is a complete rebuild based on Bitcoin 0.11. This means in terms of the code-base we introduced all the changes between Bitcoin 0.9 and 0.11 into this version of Dogecoin Core.
We therefore suggest to read the release notes of both Bitcoin 0.10 and Bitcoin 0.11

Upgrading

To upgrade from any version below 1.10 you will need to re-index once, as the block database format has changed. If you run the Qt GUI client, it will prompt you to do so on the first start after the update. If you run a dogecoind daemon, you will need to start it with the parameter -reindex once after you updated. This process can take a few hours, depending on the performance of your machine.

Mining

For this beta release, we decided to disable AuxPoW mining, while further testing is completed. The functionality will be re-enabled in a later release candidate.

Notable changes

For further explanation of these, see the above mentioned Bitcoin release notes.

Faster synchronization

Dogecoin Core 1.10 introduces headers-first and parallel block synchronization to greatly reduce the initial blockchain synchronization time.

Watch only address support

It is now possible to add public keys to your wallet that will be held in a "watch only" state. This means you will get information about incoming/outgoing transactions and resulting balance changes. Especially useful to keep track of your paper wallets.

Strict signature encoding (BIP66)

One of the reasons why mining is disabled on this release is the introduction of BIP66 which enforces strict rules about how transaction signatures are encoded and therefore will introduce a new block version (3). These rules will only activate once a certain number of blocks are mined with this new version. To not let this happen too early, mining is disabled for now. NOTE: This is not a hard fork, as all existing wallets will accept version 3 blocks, although they'll fail to enforce the new requirements.

Block file pruning

It is possible to run a Dogecoin node without keeping the full blockchain on your disk. This is currently incompatible with having a wallet on that client due to the fact that some actions regarding a wallet require the full block data. The minimum amount of kept blocks has been changed from Bitcoin to reflect our shorter block times.

General comments

Please backup your wallet regularly and especially before performing this upgrade. Do not copy your wallet.dat while Dogecoin Core is open. Instead you should either use the backup feature you find in the "File" menu or shut down Dogecoin Core completely before you make a copy of your wallet.dat.

Dogecoin Core 1.8.2

Dogecoin Core 1.8.2 is a bugfix release. It updates OpenSSL to 1.0.1l, mainly fixing security issues.

Dogecoin Core Release Notes

• Update to OpenSSL 1.0.1l

OpenSSL Warning

The main takeaway is that builds from http://dogecoin.com are not affected. But if you build your own version,
please make sure you update to 1.8.2 before updating your OpenSSL!

Please refer to this section in the Bitcoin Core release notes for further info: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/0.9/doc/release-notes.md#openssl-warning

Credits

Listed in strictly alphabetical order, using name listed in Github. This
includes those whose contributions to Bitcoin Core have been merged
into Dogecoin Core:

• Cory Fields
• langerhans
• Patrick Lodder
• Gregory Maxwell
• Ross Nicoll
• Wladimir J. van der Laan

Dogecoin Core 1.8.1

Dogecoin Core 1.8.1 is primarily a bugfix release, bringing Dogecoin Core in
line with Bitcoin 0.9.3. Dogecoin Core 1.8.1 also adds in support for printing
paper wallets, and disables connections to pre-1.8 clients. This is a RECOMMENDED
upgrade due to the large number of bug fixes, but is not a required one.

Paper wallet support has been developed by AndyMeows (IRC username), and
can be accessed via the "File" menu. It's intended for two purposes; to generate
small value paper wallets to hand out, and more permanent deposit paper wallets
for keeping balances offline.

IMPORTANT: If you are producing offline paper wallets, you should do so on a
computer that's disconnected from the Internet. While the wallet generator
does not save the keys it generates, this ensures there is no risk of a virus
or similar capturing the key from memory or interfering with its generation.

Dogecoin Core Release Notes

• Translation improvements and corrections
• Disable Transifex based translation process (not used by Dogecoin Core)
• Add checkpoints around AuxPoW switchover block (371,337)
• Disable connections from pre-1.8 Dogecoin Core clients
• Use HTTPS with dogechain.info
• Remove unreachable code introduced with AuxPoW support
• "blocknotify" option now supports %i as a format parameter, which is replaced by block height
• New option "maxoutconnections" to set the maximum number of outbound peer connections. Defaults to 8, minimum is 2, maximum is whatever "maxconnections" is set to (default 125).

Bitcoin Core Release Notes

Full release notes for Bitcoin Core 0.9.3 are available from
https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.9.3 , but highlights are included
below:

• Better orphan transaction handling
• Add -maxorphantx= and -maxorphanblocks= options for control over the maximum orphan transactions and blocks
• key.cpp: fail with a friendlier message on missing ssl EC support
• Upgrade OpenSSL to 1.0.1i (see https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv_20140806.txt - just to be sure, no critical issues for Bitcoin Core)

Known Issues

There is a known issue with quantities in JSON used by the RPC interface (https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/issues/134).
This stems from the use of a floating point precision number to hold fixed precision data.
Currently looking at solutions, which primarily either involve JSON which is not compliant
to the specification, or making the RPC layer slightly incompatible with the conventional
Bitcoin API.

This only affects values significantly below 1 Doge, however merchants may wish to round to
the nearest Doge on all transactions for now.

Credits

Listed in strictly alphabetical order, using name listed in Github. This
includes those whose contributions to Bitcoin Core have been merged
into Dogecoin Core:

• Abderraouf Adjal
• Andymeows
• Daniel Kraft
• Gavin Andresen
• langerhans
• michilumin
• nameEO
• Patrick Lodder
• Ross Nicoll
• Wladimir J. van der Laan
• Whit J

Dogecoin Core 1.8.1 Beta 1

Dogecoin Core 1.8.1 is a non-mandatory update. It includes patches introduced by upstream Bitcoin 0.9.3 (see release notes here https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.9.3) and as a new feature integrated paper wallet printing support. It also blocks clients older than version 1.8 from connecting as these wouldn't be able to sync anymore anyway due to the introduction of AuxPoW. Several translations have been updated.

About paper wallet printing
It is advised to print paper wallet on an offline computer. The client will warn you about that in case you are connected to the network.

Dogecoin Core 1.8

Dogecoin Core 1.8 introduces AuxPoW from block 371,337. AuxPoW is a technology
which enables miners to submit work done while mining other coins, as work
on the Dogecoin block chain. Dogecoin Core 1.8 also enables payment protocol
support for Dogecoin (note that Dogecoin's implementation of payment protocol is
not compatible with Bitcoin's protocol). Lastly, 1.8 also includes all fixes
from Bitcoin Core 0.9.2, whose release notes you can read at
https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.9.2 (this is a summary, and the release includes
around 150 bugfixes from Bitcoin Core).

Note that all users MUST upgrade to 1.8. If you're unable to update before the
switchover block (371,337, expected around 12 September 2014), you MUST update
as soon as possible afterwards in order to be able to continue to use Dogecoin.
Users remaining on the previous client will not be able to receive or spend
Dogecoin (with the exception of with other nodes who have not upgraded).

Upgrading

Before upgrading, back up your wallet.dat file just in case of any problems; you
can back up the wallet.dat file by using the "Backup Wallet" option from the "File"
menu. Ensure your existing wallet software is closed before upgrading.

Note that a full reindex is required as part of the upgrade to 1.8, and this
will typically take around an hour to complete. If you are running the Qt client
you will be prompted to reindex when first running the software, while if you
use "dogecoind" you must run it the first time with the "-reindex" command line
option.

To ensure a smooth switchover to AuxPoW, 1.8 has safe mode disabled 1 hour before
until 24 hours after the switch block. This ensures the actually legit fork will not
trigger safe mode and halt mining. If you don't want to have this behavior, then
refer to the 1.8-safemode branch. This one doesn't include the patch to disable safe mode.

Downgrading

As 1.8 includes a substantial change to the mining protocol, downgrading to previous
clients is not possible.

AuxPoW

AuxPoW is enabled from block 371,337. Until that block the RPC commands for using AuxPoW
will not function, and AuxPoW blocks will be rejected.

AuxPoW benefits Dogecoin in two ways; firstly, the effective hashrate of the coin is
increased by these additional miners, making it harder to perform a 51% attack against
the coin, and secondly it reduces conflict for resources (Scrypt miners), demotivating
multipools from switching between Dogecoin and other Scrypt coins.

AuxPoW blocks are mined using the "getauxblock" and "getworkaux" RPC commands. Support
for AuxPoW mining is included in Powerpool ( https://github.com/simplecrypto/powerpool/ )
and p2pool ( http://p2pool.in/ ).

In comparison to the AuxPoW implementation in United Scrypt Coin, Dogecoin uses a
different coinbase transaction input script format which includes block height in
compliance with BIP0034.

Payment Protocol

Dogecoin Core 1.8 adds payment protocol support, which is used to streamline payments
being made to merchants.

This protocol is defined in DIP0070-DIP0072, based on the BIP standards with the same
assigned numbers. DIP standards can be found at https://github.com/dogecoin/dips/ .
The key differencs between the Bitcoin and Dogecoin payment protocols are that
the Dogecoin payment request uses a "genesis" field containing the hash of the network's
genesis block to identify networks instead of the "network" field. Further, MIME types
for the request, payment and response are modified to identify the files as distinct
types from the Bitcoin files.

Transaction Fees

As of 1.8 all transactions have fees applied by defaults, with no exemptions made for
"old" coins. This ensures fees are consistent, while remaining extremely competitive
(typically 1 Doge, or around $0.00012 per transaction).

RPC Allow IP

The format of IP masks supplied to the "rpcallowip" command line option has changed.
It no longer accepts subnets like '192.168..', and the format '192.168/16" should
be used instead.

Other Changes

The Chinese and Korean translations have been updated.

Protocol version has been updated to 70003, meaning that a later release of the client
can block access to all old clients (70002 and below).

In case of an error reading the block database from disk, the database cursor could be
left open, which caused an assertion error later. The database cursor is now correctly
disposed of in all cases.

Tweaked trigger conditions for safe mode to take into account the much faster block time
of Dogecoin compared to Bitcoin. This should lead to less false positives.

A problem in parsing mangled dogecoin: URIs under Windows has been resolved, and as
part of this work network detection for dogecoin: URIs is now more robust.

Dogecoin Core 1.8 beta 1

This is the first beta of Dogecoin Core 1.8.

It already has AuxPoW functionality built in. Starting block for testnet was 158,100, for mainnet it will be 371,337.

Blockchain reindex

After you updated your client and start 1.8 the first time, the Qt client will prompt you for a reindex of the block data. It is important to accept this, as the format has changed. This takes, depending on your machine, somehwere around 15-30 minutes. It will not re-download the chain, just reindex your local copy. If you are running a daemon (dogecoind), then you need to manually start it with the -reindex parameter once!

Testnet

Since the testnet already has AuxPoW enabled, you can start the client with the -testnet flasg and play around on it. You can mine directly into your wallet by pointing your miner to the IP of the wallet and port 44555. You may need to start it with -server and set a RPC user and password in the dogecoin.conf file.

Safe mode

If you are using the client on the testnet you might see fork warnings. In case your client goes into safe mode while playing on the testnet you can run it with -disablesafemode. We are working on making the transition on mainnet as smooth as possible for the final version.

This is a security release.

Dogecoin Core 1.7.1 is built against OpenSSL 1.0.1h, released to close recently disclosed vulnerabilities, which could have an impact on the usage of RPC over SSL. If you use this feature, it is advised that you upgrade to 1.7.1 and OpenSSL 1.0.1h.

If you do not use RPC over SSL, you don't need to upgrade.

No other changes where made in this release.

If you are still using Dogecoin Core 1.6 and also use RPC over SSL in a publicly accessible manner, we advise you to upgrade to 1.7.1 or restrict the usage of RPC to your local controlled network.

Dogecoin 1.7.0

Dogecoin 1.7 is a complete re-architecture of the Dogecoin client, changing from
using the Litecoin client as its base, to Bitcoin 0.9. It's still Dogecoin,
same Scrypt PoW algorithm, same reward schedule, but there's a lot of
changes under the hood.

For the full Bitcoin 0.9 changelog, please see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=522014

Downgrading

First and foremost, please note that downgrading from 1.7 to 1.6 is not trivial.
1.7 now uses Berkeley DB 5.1 as its default database (in place of 4.8), and as
such may create database files which are incompatible with previous versions.

Rebranding to Dogecoin Core

Following in the footsteps of Bitcoin (Core), the Dogecoin reference client
has been rebranded as "Dogecoin Core". This helps separate its identity
from Dogecoin (the network).

dogecoin-cli

Where previously commands were sent to dogecoind by running
"dogecoind ", 1.7 adopts the model from Bitcoin Core 0.9 where there is
a separate "dogecoin-cli" executable which us used instead. This avoids the risk
of accidentally trying to start two daemons at the same time, for example.

Fork detection

This version is able to detect forks and warn about them both in the GUI and through calling the alertnotify script when a sufficiently long or invalid fork occurs.

Changes from RC1

• Change the amount input field step value to 1 DOGE
• Update the splash screen
• Update Chinese translation

General comments

For anyone running an exchange, please also note that in light of the 51% attack against Reddcoin last night, the Dogecoin developers now
recommend a minimum of 10 confirmations for payments into an exchange.

This is Dogecoin 1.7.0 RC1. Following a run down of the changes since Beta 2:

• Ship Windows installers
• Ship statically linked Linux binaries
• New icon for OS X with retina resultions
• Payment protocol has been disabled for 1.7 and will be reworked for a future release
• Require 3 instead of 6 confirmations again in the Qt wallet
• Added new checkpoints
• Add and update a few more unit tests
• Small cleanups and tweaks

This release mainly fixes a bug which could cause problems with spending coinbase (mined) transactions in Beta 1.

Changes:

• Fixed coinbase maturity calculation
• Added dogecoind and dogecoin-cli binaries for Windows
• Use Qt4 for Mac
• Updated most of the unit tests to reflect Dogecoin
• Removed remaining references to Bitcoin in the UI
• Updated documentation

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

For more information about the changes in 1.7, check the Alpha 1 release notes:
https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/releases/tag/v1.7.0-Alpha-1

This is Beta 1 of the all new Dogecoin Core 1.7.0 client.

This client runs on the production network by default. As always, please backup your wallet.dat.

Changes since Alpha 1:

• Translation fixes
• Fix payment URI prefix
• Added testnet seeds
• Added back the "-change" option
• Added back context menu entry to show transaction on dogechain.info
• Upgrade to OpenSSL 1.0.1g
• Added back the logo in the wallet. With custom option by putting a dogecoin.png into the data directory

For more information about the changes in 1.7, check the Alpha 1 release notes:
https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/releases/tag/v1.7.0-Alpha-1

Dogecoin Core 1.7 Alpha

Dogecoin Core 1.7 is a complete re-architecture of Dogecoin, changing from
using the Litecoin client as its base, to Bitcoin 0.9. It's still Dogecoin,
same Scrypt PoW algorithm, same reward schedule, but there's a lot of
changes under the hood.

For the full Bitcoin 0.9 changelog, please see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=522014

Please note that this is a very early release, and a full audit of the code
is still in progress. The client has been hard-coded to only work with testnet
for now, to avoid risks of damaging real wallets.

Downgrading

First and foremost, please note that downgrading from 1.7 to 1.6 is not trivial.
1.7 now uses Berkeley DB 5.1 as its default database (in place of 4.8), and as
such may create database files which are incompatible with previous versions.

Rebranding to Dogecoin Core

Following in the footsteps of Bitcoin (Core), the Dogecoin reference client
has been rebranded as "Dogecoin Core". This helps separate its identity
from Dogecoin (the network).

dogecoin-cli

Where previously commands were sent to dogecoind by running
"dogecoind ", 1.7 adopts the model from Bitcoin Core 0.9 where there is
a separate "dogecoin-cli" executable which us used instead. This avoids the risk
of accidentally trying to start two daemons at the same time, for example.

Transaction malleability-related fixes

Fixes for risk-cases involving transaction malleability have been added; this
is particularly important for any merchants or exchanges using the built-in
wallet system.

Testnet

As mentioned at the start of this document, the alpha-client is for use on the
Dogecoin testnet only. This is an alternative Dogecoin blockchain which is
not used for real transactions, and instead is intended for testing of experimental
clients. Wallets and addresses are incompatible with the normal Dogecoin
network, in order to isolate the two.

As "test Doge" is essentially valueless, it can be acquired easily for testing,
either by mining, or from a faucet such as http://testdoge.lionservers.de/

Note: This is a mandatory update as it involves a hard fork of the network. Please make sure you are running 1.6 to ensure that you're on the correct blockchain and not at risk of losing your DOGE

As per block 145k, the network will hardfork to adopt a new difficulty retargeting algorithm.

Update highlights:

1. No longer a random block reward - we now only have static blocks. The current reward will be 250,000 Doge per block, with the halvening dropping us to 125,000 Doge per block, etc etc. This will prevent block cherry-picking; as we're seeing at the moment, with our community pools only seeing 100-200k blocks, while the multi's gaming the system are enjoying 300-500k blocks. From the 1.6 update, all blocks will be completely even.
2. The DigiShield difficulty algorithm: again, developed and contributed by the very clever folks at reddit.com/r/DigiByte , this allows for rapid block retarget times, and rapid recovery from multipools suddenly hitting the network; meaning that our miners will no longer suffer from extremely long block times if a Multipool does decide to jump on board. This new algorithm will retarget our block times much faster - ensuring the hard-mining shibe is not left holding the bag after the multipool ransack.
3. Coins mined must mature for 4 hours (previously 30 minutes) before being spent. This is a precautionary measure, to give everyone more time to communicate following any future fork of the network.

For a complete history of all commits, please check the repository history. A big shout out to everyone who made this release possible, and happy digging shibes! :)

This minor release implements a checkpoint to ensure clients are on the correct blockchain, following a recent pre-1.5 fork that was created.

Updating is not mandatory, but highly recommended. Do not run any pre-1.5 version of Dogecoin, as you may end up on the incorrect fork

We're happy to announce the release of Dogecoin version 1.5.1!

This release incorporates a range of updates from community contributers, some much needed bug fixes, plus some cool treats brought down-stream from the recent Bitcoin 0.9 release candidate.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this release possible, the entire community appreciates it. We recommend all users update to the latest version and please report any issues you may encounter. As always, backup your wallet.dat file before updating (just to be safe).

Release highlights:

• Switched to Boost 1.55 to fix network connectivity issues on Windows
• Removal of reliance on IRC for discovering nodes
• Support for URL protocol, eg. dogecoin:addr?amount=xxx&<additional_parameters> (see Bitcoin’s implementation)
• Ability to automatically look up transactions on Dogechain from your client
• Working Windows setup script and installer
• Opt-in debug logging via -debuglog (to save disk space and stop constant writing)
• Fixed Mac Splashscreen’s greedy desktop behavior
• Reimplemented testnet, fixing RPC crash due to no genesis block being present
• Allow user to load any wallet from data directory specified using -wallet=mywallet.dat
• Updated to LevelDB 1.15 to address blockchain database corruption issues
• Allow user to send change only to specified address(es) using -change= (one -change parameter per address)
• Fixed RPC difficulty look up

Enjoy!

v1.5 of Dogecoin. This major release moves Dogecoin up to match the latest Litecoin code base and includes several other tweaks to improve sync times dramatically.

_We recommend all users update to v1.5 immediately._ To update, simply overwrite your existing Dogecoin install. As always, please make regular backups of your wallet.dat file.

Please note that due to a change in the database engine being used, a reindex will be required initially off your previously downloaded blockchain data - this should be quick however, and a full blockchain resync should not be needed. If you experience issues getting the client to sync: please close the client, delete all files from your data directory (except wallet.dat), and try opening the client again.

For any other issues encountered, please report them here on Github using the "Issues" tab to the right.

Changelog:

• Updated code base to Litecoin 0.8.6.2 (inherits all Litecoin updates since 0.6.*). Highlights include:
  • New database engine for block storage resulting in faster index/sync times
  • Implements txindex, reindex and walletnotify
  • Coin control options for advanced users
  • Overall increased stability
  • A range of security fixes
• Graphical tweaks, including splash screen
• New official DNS seed added (seed.dogecoin.com) for improved sync times
• Updated PROTOCOL_VERSION for better node detection
• New alert keys to allow for network-wide alert notification in future

Linux binaries will be distributed shortly, stay tuned

Changelog:

• Updated code base to Litecoin 0.8.6.2 (inherits all Litecoin updates since 0.6.*)
• Graphical tweaks, including splash screen
• Updated PROTOCOL_VERSION for better node detection
• New alert keys to allow for network-wide alert notification in future

In this Windows only release, the bug causing wallets to crash on encryption and other RPC commands is fixed.

Addresses issues with forked blockchain. Please see http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/1ug958/psa_dogecoin_wallet_version_14_released_you_must/ for more information.

MANDATORY release
Fix for dust issue caused from intentional blockchain spam

Thanks to /u/psylence519 for his work on the Mac binary. 👍