Groestlcoin 22nd December Release

Groestlcoin Release December 2020

This development release brings another historical first for the cryptocurrency community, but before we delve into that, we at the Groestlcoin Core team would like to wish everyone a fantastic winter solstice (albeit a day late!), a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

This year has possibly the strangest year in many of our lifetime, but with several Covid-19 vaccines now coming through and being approved, hopefully 2021 will see the resuming of post-virus normality.
2020 wasn’t all that bad though. Bitcoin has seen a new all-time-high that was previously set in 2017, firmly breaking through the $20,000 barrier and of course, Groestlcoin is once again leading the charge as being a blockchain pioneer, being known as the first to activate and complete a Segwit transaction, and now for being the first cryptocurrency to activate and complete a Taproot transaction on Testnet on 19-12-2020 and 20-12-2020 respectively.

What is Taproot? Taproot is a modified advanced form of MAST which uses a trick to allow the creation of complex conditional transactions (i.e. multi-sig) which look like normal transactions.
This trick is called aggregate signatures or threshold signatures or threshold public keys and they take advantage of the possibility of adding two private keys together in order to respectively sign the public keys joined together.
Taproot intends to use this trick with MAST and multi-sig transactions to enable participants to aggregate their signatures and spend from a multi-sig just like a normal transaction together with Schnorr digital signatures that allow you to sign only once for different addresses using an aggregate signature.

TL;DR: Taproot, Schnorr and MAST are complementary innovations that bring fascinating and complex transactional capabilities into Groestlcoin. While Schnorr helps protect the privacy and partly increases scalability and privacy, Taproot focuses on making outputs and expenses within the network indistinguishable.
As ever, the Groestlcoin team have been fighting through the disruptive but necessary Covid-19 restrictions that each individual nation has taken and have been hard at work developing new projects as well as building upon and maintaining existing ones. Once again, this release showcases the developers untiring, unrelenting work over the past three months.

 

What’s Being Released Today?

 

GROESTLCOIN DEVELOPMENT RELEASE

Groestlcoin Core 2.21.0

What am I?

This is a major release of Groestlcoin Core with many protocol level improvements and code optimizations, featuring the technical equivalent of Bitcoin Core v0.21.0 but with Groestlcoin specific patches. On a general level, most of what is new is the second version bits BIP9 softfork deployment, the Schnorr Signatures for secp256k1, Taproot: SegWit version 1 spending rules and Validation of Taproot Scripts.

Pool operators, P2Pool and solo miners especially because by default, Groestlcoin Core automatically set and unsets version bits as required.
The deployment sets the block version number to 0x20000004 between midnight 15th Dec 2020 and midnight 31th Dec 2021 to signal readiness for deployment. The version number consists of 0x20000000 to indicate version bits together with setting bit 2, shown as "taproot" in the "getblockchaininfo" RPC call. Please note it will keep generating blocks with version 0x20000004 until "taproot" is activated at which point is will automatically unset bit 2.

Taproot Upgrade Information
The taproot soft fork is fully backwards compatible with all Groestlcoin wallets, so you will continue to be able to safely send and receive groestlcoins whether or not taproot is activated.

Taproot softfork mainnet timeline
• Signal: Miners will be able to signal that they are willing and able to enforce taproot starting at the beginning of the first 2016 block retarget period on or after 15 December 2020 (UTC). In short signalling started on block 3382848.
• Lock-in: Once 95% of blocks in a 2016 block long period have signaled that their miners are ready to enforce taproot then taproot will lock-in – meaning that unless the blockchain is rolled back at that point, taproot will become active.
• Activate: After another 2016 block period, taproot will activate, allowing miners to produce blocks containing taproot transactions on Groestlcoin’s mainnet. When taproot is activated, transaction-producing software will be able to enforce a new SegWit version 1 output type, with spending rules based on Taproot, Schnorr signatures, and Merkle branches.

Taproot softfork testnet timeline
• Signal: Miners will be able to signal that they are willing and able to enforce taproot starting at the beginning of the first 2016 block retarget period on or after 15 December 2020 (UTC). In short signalling started on block 1929312.
• Lock-in: Once 75% of blocks in a 2016 block long period have signaled that their miners are ready to enforce taproot then taproot will lock-in – meaning that unless the blockchain is rolled back at that point, taproot will become active. In short Lock-in was on block 1931328.
• Activate: After another 2016 block period, taproot will activate, allowing miners to produce blocks containing taproot transactions on Groestlcoin’s testnet. In short Activate was on block 1933344. When taproot is activated, transaction-producing software will be able to enforce a new SegWit version 1 output type, with spending rules based on Taproot, Schnorr signatures, and Merkle branches.

Changelog

Important

Make a copy your wallet.dat file as a backup and move it to a secure location:
Location Windows: Navigate to C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\groestlcoin\wallet.dat (or open windows explorer and enter %appdata%\Groestlcoin\wallet.dat)
Location Mac: Finder -> Go {Hold Option] -> Library -> groestlcoin -> wallet.dat (~/Library/Application Support/groestlcoin/wallet.dat)

How to upgrade

  • Windows: If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait until it has completely shut down (which might take a few minutes for older versions), then run the installer.
  • OSX: If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait until it has completely shut down (which might take a few minutes for older versions), run the dmg and drag Groestlcoin Core to Applications.

SourceOSXWindowsLinux

Electrum-GRS 4.0.7

What am I?

If you are an ordinary user of Groestlcoin and simply want the convenience of a web wallet with the security of a real application and support for multi-signature, then Elecrum-GRS is the right choice for you.

Changelog Electrum-GRS 4.0.7

• PSBT: restore compatibility with Groestlcoin Core following CVE-2020-14199: we now allow a PSBT input to have both UTXO and WITNESS_UTXO. (PSBTs created since 4.0.2 already contained UTXO for segwit inputs).
• Hardware wallets: run all device communication on a dedicated thread.
• New feature: "Automated BIP39 recovery". When restoring from a BIP39 seed, add option to scan many known derivation paths for history, and show them to user to choose from.
• Show derivation path of keystores in Qt GUI Wallet>Information.
• Fix "signtransaction" RPC command.
• The tar.gz source dist now bundles make_libsecp256k1.sh, to help users getting libsecp256k1.
• New feature: "Cancel tx". The Qt/kivy GUI allows cancelling an unconfirmed RBF tx by double-spending its inputs to self.
• Windows binary:
- fix some issues with QR scanning by building zbar ourselves.
- when using setup exe, also install a debug binary.
• Fix .dmg binary hanging on recently released macOS 11 Big Sur.
• Lightning:
- bugfix: during LN channel opening, if the client crashed at the wrong moment, the channel might not get fully persisted to disk, and would need manual console-tinkering to recover.
- Lightning is enabled by default. Electrum-GRS will not connect to the Lightning Network until the user opens a channel.
- smarter node recommendation (to open channels with).
• Fix 'Max' button issue for submarine swaps button.
• Fix 'Max' button in kivy.
• Various fixes for Kivy/Android install wizard.
• Kivy: fix open channel with 'max' amount.
• Dependencies (as part of adapting to new dnspython):
- pyaes is no longer needed.
- python-ecdsa is no longer needed at all.
- cryptography is now required (min 2.6), the user can no longer choose between cryptography and pycryptodomex.

Features

  • Encrypted wallet - the file that contains your groestlcoins is protected with a password. You are protected from thieves.
  • Deterministic key generation - If you lose your wallet, you can recover it from its seed. You are protected from your own mistakes.
  • Instant on - the client does not download the blockchain, it requests that information from a server. No delays, always up-to-date.
  • Freedom and Privacy - The server does not store user accounts. You are not tied to a particular server, and the server does not need to know you.
  • No scripts - Electrum-GRS does not download any script. A compromised server cannot send you arbitrary code and steal your groestlcoins.
  • No single point of failure - The server code is open source, anyone can run a server.
  • Transactions are signed locally - Your private keys are not shared with the server. You do not have to trust the server with your money.
  • Firewall friendly - The client does not need to open a port, it simply polls the server for updates.
  • Free software - Gnu GPL v3. Anyone can audit the code.
  • Written in Python - The code is short, and easy to review.
  • User Friendly - Support for Groestlcoin URIs, signed URIs and Groestlcoin aliases
  • No Lock-In - You can export your private keys and use them in other groestlcoin clients.
  • No Downtimes - Electrum-GRS servers are decentralized and redundant. Your wallet is never down.
  • Proof Checking - Electrum-GRS Wallet verifies all the transactions in your history using SPV.
  • Cold Storage - Keep your private keys offline, and go online with a watching-only wallet. Sign transactions from a computer that is always offline. Broadcast them from a machine that does not have your keys.
  • Multisign - Split the permission to spend your coins between several wallets using parallel BIP32 derivations and P2SH addresses ("2 of 2", "2 of 3"). Compact serialization format for unsigned or partially signed transactions, that includes the BIP32 master public key and derivation needed to sign inputs. Serialized transactions can be sent to cosigners or to cold storage using QR codes.

OSXWindowsWindows StandaloneWindows PortableLinux

Server SourceServer Installer SourceClient Source

Android Electrum-GRS 4.0.7

What am I?

If you are an ordinary user of Groestlcoin and simply want the convenience of a web wallet with the security of a real application and support for multi-signature, then Elecrum-GRS is the right choice for you.

Changelog Electrum-GRS 4.0.7

• PSBT: restore compatibility with Groestlcoin Core following CVE-2020-14199: we now allow a PSBT input to have both UTXO and WITNESS_UTXO. (PSBTs created since 4.0.2 already contained UTXO for segwit inputs).
• Hardware wallets: run all device communication on a dedicated thread.
• New feature: "Automated BIP39 recovery". When restoring from a BIP39 seed, add option to scan many known derivation paths for history, and show them to user to choose from.
• Show derivation path of keystores in Qt GUI Wallet>Information.
• Fix "signtransaction" RPC command.
• The tar.gz source dist now bundles make_libsecp256k1.sh, to help users getting libsecp256k1.
• New feature: "Cancel tx". The Qt/kivy GUI allows cancelling an unconfirmed RBF tx by double-spending its inputs to self.
• Windows binary:
- fix some issues with QR scanning by building zbar ourselves.
- when using setup exe, also install a debug binary.
• Fix .dmg binary hanging on recently released macOS 11 Big Sur.
• Lightning:
- bugfix: during LN channel opening, if the client crashed at the wrong moment, the channel might not get fully persisted to disk, and would need manual console-tinkering to recover.
- Lightning is enabled by default. Electrum-GRS will not connect to the Lightning Network until the user opens a channel.
- smarter node recommendation (to open channels with).
• Fix 'Max' button issue for submarine swaps button.
• Fix 'Max' button in kivy.
• Various fixes for Kivy/Android install wizard.
• Kivy: fix open channel with 'max' amount.
• Dependencies (as part of adapting to new dnspython):
- pyaes is no longer needed.
- python-ecdsa is no longer needed at all.
- cryptography is now required (min 2.6), the user can no longer choose between cryptography and pycryptodomex.

Features

  • Encrypted wallet - the file that contains your groestlcoins is protected with a password. You are protected from thieves.
  • Deterministic key generation - If you lose your wallet, you can recover it from its seed. You are protected from your own mistakes.
  • Instant on - the client does not download the blockchain, it requests that information from a server. No delays, always up-to-date.
  • Freedom and Privacy - The server does not store user accounts. You are not tied to a particular server, and the server does not need to know you.
  • No scripts - Electrum-GRS does not download any script. A compromised server cannot send you arbitrary code and steal your groestlcoins.
  • No single point of failure - The server code is open source, anyone can run a server.
  • Transactions are signed locally - Your private keys are not shared with the server. You do not have to trust the server with your money.
  • Firewall friendly - The client does not need to open a port, it simply polls the server for updates.
  • Free software - Gnu GPL v3. Anyone can audit the code.
  • Written in Python - The code is short, and easy to review.
  • User Friendly - Support for Groestlcoin URIs, signed URIs and Groestlcoin aliases
  • No Lock-In - You can export your private keys and use them in other groestlcoin clients.
  • No Downtimes - Electrum-GRS servers are decentralized and redundant. Your wallet is never down.
  • Proof Checking - Electrum-GRS Wallet verifies all the transactions in your history using SPV.
  • Cold Storage - Keep your private keys offline, and go online with a watching-only wallet. Sign transactions from a computer that is always offline. Broadcast them from a machine that does not have your keys.
  • Multisign - Split the permission to spend your coins between several wallets using parallel BIP32 derivations and P2SH addresses ("2 of 2", "2 of 3"). Compact serialization format for unsigned or partially signed transactions, that includes the BIP32 master public key and derivation needed to sign inputs. Serialized transactions can be sent to cosigners or to cold storage using QR codes.

Google Play

Server SourceServer Installer SourceClient Source

C-lightning 0.9.2

What am I?

C-Lightning is a specification-compliant Lightning Network implementation built in C. It is a lightweight, highly customisable and standard compliant implementation of the Lightning Network protocol. C-Lightning only works on Linux and Mac OS and requires a local or remote instance of Groestlcoind (version 2.16 or above) that is fully synced to the correct blockchain.

Changelog 0.9.2

• The sending of multi-part payments has seen a lot of work, covering more corner cases and generally becoming much more robust.
• New official plugins create commands multiwithdraw and multifundchannel to easily produce a single transaction which does more than one thing; these use the PSBT plumbing created for v0.9.0.
• We produce far less log spam when log-level is set to debug, so if you've avoided setting that before, I recommend trying now.
• Startup checks that groestlcoind is the correct version, and relays transactions
• Builtin plugins are now nominated as important, and you can nominate others as important too. The daemon will stop if these fail.
• You can now build a postgres-only installation, without sqlite3.
• Our invoices now supply more than one routehint if we think you'll need to use multi-part-payments.
• We prune channels which are not updated in both directions every 2 weeks.
• Our default CTLV expiry has increased to 34 blocks, or 18 if we're the final node, as per updated specification recommendations (lightningnetwork/lightning-rfc#785)
• PSBT APIs fleshed out with utxopsbt and locktime arguments.
• Plugins can easily mark commands and options deprecated.
• The new channel_state_changed notification lets plugins easily track channel behavior.
• We now keep track of channel closure rationales. Wonder "why did my channel close" no more. All channel state changes are now listed in listpeers's state_changes.
• New CLI/RPC notifications: Tired of waiting for close to finish without getting any updates? With notifications, the close command will publish notifications (think CLI status updates) for slow closes. Must have allow-deprecated-apis set to false for these to work.
• New optional argument commitment_feerate on the multifundchannel command. This is useful for setting one feerate for the funding transaction and another for the channel commitment transactions.
• Two new commands added to hsmtool:
  - generatehsm allows you to create an HSM hsm_secret from a BIP39 pass phrase. (Note that due to c-lightning's current seed derivation process, wallet addresses aren't standard 'BIP39 to BIP32' compliant. Which is a fancy way of saying your pass phrase isn't portable to other, non-clightning wallets.)
  - dumponchaindescriptors will output the xpub for the HD wallet master key. This will let you track swept c-lightning wallet funds -- anchor outputs and unswept channel outputs won't be visible until swept.
• The starting feerate for mutual closes has been reduced to 'slow', to avoid overpayment.
• In-memory log buffer now is 10MB, down from 100MB.
• We no longer support receiving full gossip from ancient LND nodes
• Fixed re-transmission order of multiple new HTLCS. This was causing channel closures with LND.
• Plugin hook call ordering. Hooks can now specify that they must be called 'before' or 'after' other plugins.
• pyln-client will handle and send RPC command notifications.
• pyln-proto now includes a pure python implementation of the sphinx onion creation and processing.
• PostgresSQL key-value DSNs now supported.
• Plugin hook htlc_accepted can now return a custom failure_onion.

Features

  • Ability to create new channels
  • Ability to close existing channels
  • Completely manage all channel states, including exceptional ones
  • Performing path-finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments
  • Sending outgoing onion-encrypted payments through the network
  • Automatic channel management (auto-pilot)

SourceBuilding instructions LinuxBuilding instructions for OSX

GroestlSeed

What am I?

Writing down your groestlcoin recovery seeds on plain paper might be solid electronic security, but terrible physical security. Not everyone has a safe they can keep stuff like that in. GroestlSeed encrypts your recovery seed with AES256 and encodes the encrypted data into a QR Code which you can print out and keep anywhere. Why pay for solutions that still leave your seed in plain text when you can print out and laminate a business card with your encrypted recovery seed on it for free. You could keep a copy in your wallet, or in a safe, or even hide it in plain sight.
Your recovery seed is encrypted with the Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode of the Advanced Encryption Standard with a 256 bit key length. Your key is generated using a password of your choice and a random salt, hashed 1 million times with pbkdf2 (sha512). Encrypting the same data with the same key will yield a different result every time.

Features

• Encrypts your recovery seed with AES256
• Encodes the encrypted data into a QR Code

SourceOsx – WindowsLinux

Emoji Seed

What am I?

Tired of boring 12-word seeds? Use emoji instead! The same security in a funny form!
You can generate a private key and show it as a sequence of emojis. This sequence has a checksum (like in electrum-grs, derived from hash, not from the wordlist) and you can actually use these private and public keys in any wallet.
To detect typos we use a wordlist-independent electrum-grs checksum approach: Emoji seed generator creates sequences of random emojis and checks if their HMAC starts with "01" (electrum-grs standard seed). With this type of checksum even using a different list of emojis will lead to a valid seed, and if you've made a typo when entering the seed first two characters of the HMAC will be different from "01", so you will know that you made a typo.

Features

• Shows your seed hash
• Shows your master private key
• Shows your master public key
• Shows your master private key
• Shows the current emojis wordlist used

Note: Using emoji seed is experimental as there are plenty of similar emojis and they are platform-dependent.

SourceOffline DownloadLive version

StegoSeed

What am I?

This tool uses a Markov model of a text corpus to generate sentences which encode groestlcoin wallets by including BIP39 words in the text.

Features

• Hide your seed steganographically

SourceOffline DownloadLive version

GroestlDice

What am I?

Generate groestlcoin BIP39 mnemonic words using dice.

Features

• Checks if internet is connected

Note: During the seed generation process, this machine should be completely offline. This tool is experimental.

SourceOsx – WindowsLinux

Seed Guardian

What am I?

Split and reconstruct your groestlcoin BIP39 Seed using Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme.

Features

• Hexadecimal shares are humanized using BIP39 algorithm, so each share is encoded as a sequence of 15 words.
• Adjustable number of shares and threshold.

Note: Only 12 words seed supported and should be BIP39 compatible.

SourceOffline Download – Live Version

BIP39 Builder

What am I?

This tool allows you to generate and customize BIP39 mnemonic seed phrases used for creating and/or recovering a Groestlcoin deterministic wallet.

Features

• Choose between 24, 21, 18, 15, and 12 words
• Generate a complete random phrase at any time
• The button will use the browser's random number generator
• The text input will use the SHA-256 hash of whatever you type in (should be something random, or very long)
• Drop down interface for selecting and searching for individual words
• The list of valid last words will dynamically update as word selections are made
• Once all words are selected, a summary is shown which helps visualize the mapping between the data and words. The seed is also shown with an optional passphrase input, which can then be used with BIP32 for generating a deterministic wallet.

Note: Choosing your own mnemonic is less secure than using a randomly generated one. There is a greater chance an attacker can guess your phrase if it is not random. On the flip side, there is also a greater chance of remembering a custom phrase in case you lose your backups by accident. Overall, random is still better, but if you're willing to accept the tradeoffs, a custom mnemonic can be useful. It is another tool to have in the wide spectrum of security systems.

SourceLive Site