Avian Core v5.0.0 Release Notes

Avian Core v5.0.0 "Smaug" is a major release that rebases Avian onto the Bitcoin Core 30.2 codebase, bringing years of upstream improvements to Avian while preserving and modernizing Avian-specific functionality.

This release includes a new build system, descriptor wallet support, PSBT support, modern networking and validation infrastructure, rebuilt indexes, asset-layer improvements, dual-algorithm mining updates, and experimental post-quantum address support for testing.

This is the new v5 lineage root for Avian Core.

Major Highlights

Rebased on Bitcoin Core 30.2

Avian Core has been fully rebased onto Bitcoin Core 30.2 rather than incrementally patched forward from the previous 4.x codebase.

This brings major upstream improvements, including:

• Modern validation, mempool, and P2P networking infrastructure
• CMake-based build system, replacing autotools
• Descriptor wallets and modern wallet architecture
• PSBT support
• SegWit support
• Compact block relay support
• MiniSketch-based transaction relay infrastructure (BIP 330, disabled by default)
• I2P and CJDNS network support
• Updated libsecp256k1
• Improved RPC, wallet, and node internals

Avian-specific functionality has been ported onto this newer architecture.

Avian Asset Layer

The Avian asset layer has been ported and updated for the Bitcoin Core 30.2 transaction, UTXO, wallet, and validation model.

Included functionality:

• Asset issuance, transfer, reissue, and restricted asset support
• Asset database persistence and synchronization
• Asset RPC support
• Asset GUI support for creation, transfer, reissue, and restricted asset workflows
• Asset duplicate detection in the mempool
• Improved asset validation during mempool acceptance
• Fixed asset index wiring and rebuild behavior
• Fixed asset RPCs such as listaddressesbyasset and listassetbalancesbyaddress
• Fixed owner-token lookup behavior
• Improved asset script type detection in indexes

Asset operations remain legacy P2PKH-only in v5.0.0. Bech32 addresses are supported for normal AVN indexing and querying, but not for asset creation or asset transfer.

PSBT Support

Avian Core v5.0.0 adds PSBT support, including support for asset transfer outputs.

This enables new non-custodial workflows where transaction intent can be constructed, exchanged, reviewed, signed, and finalized without requiring custody of user funds.

This is especially important for future Avian asset marketplace, escrow, auction, and wallet workflows.

Index Infrastructure Overhaul

The legacy address, spent, and timestamp indexes have been replaced with BaseIndex-derived implementations aligned with Bitcoin Core 30.x index architecture.

Index improvements include:

• Rebuilt address index
• Rebuilt spent index
• Rebuilt timestamp index
• P2WPKH / bech32 v0 support in address and spent indexes
• Fixed spent index disconnect behavior during reorgs

If using -addressindex, -spentindex, -timestampindex, or -assetindex, a fresh sync or reindex is recommended.

Dual-Algorithm Mining Improvements

X16RT and MinotaurX dual-algorithm mining has been ported to the v5 architecture with several improvements:

• Fixed GetTarget crash for certain low-difficulty MinotaurX blocks
• Made X16RT and MinotaurX hashing compiler-safe and deterministic
• Per-algorithm difficulty in getchainstates and getmininginfo
• Added powalgo option to generate RPCs
• Updated minimum chain work and assumevalid values

Experimental Post-Quantum Address Support

Avian Core v5.0.0 includes experimental RIP-25 support for ML-DSA-44 post-quantum addresses using witness v2.

This includes:

• ML-DSA-44 (FIPS 204) post-quantum signature support
• Witness v2 address support
• liboqs 0.12.0 integration through depends
• Wallet support for creating, funding, and signing post-quantum transactions
• RPC support for post-quantum key and transaction workflows
• Consensus activation gated behind deployment parameters

Important: RIP-25 post-quantum addresses are not active on mainnet in this release.

This functionality is included for development and testing purposes.

Wallet and GUI Improvements

Wallet and GUI functionality has been updated for the v5 architecture.

Notable changes include:

• Descriptor wallet support
• Legacy wallet import improvements
• BIP44 keypath handling fixes
• Wallet migration fixes
• Asset GUI ported to v5
• Dark and light theme support
• Paper wallet generation and printing
• Asset UTXO duster support
• Fixed wallet locking in reward RPCs
• Improved privacy mode masking for asset name and quantity

New Avian-Specific RPCs and Features

Avian Core v5.0.0 includes new Avian-specific functionality not present in Avian Core 4.2.0 or upstream Bitcoin Core.

New or improved features include:

• UTXO consolidation RPC
• Reward distribution RPC, distributereward
• Burn address validation for reward distributions
• Asset-aware PSBT construction
• Dual-algorithm mining RPC improvements
• Restored index RPCs
• Improved asset index and address index behavior

Build and Packaging

Avian Core v5.0.0 uses the modern Bitcoin Core CMake build system.

Build and infrastructure updates include:

• CMake-based builds
• Deterministic Guix build support
• Depends package updates
• liboqs integration for post-quantum testing
• CUPS dependency support for Qt paper wallet printing
• CI updates for Linux, macOS, and Windows
• Rebranded binaries, man pages, install paths, contrib scripts, and documentation

Supported build targets include:

• Linux x86_64
• Linux ARM
• Linux AArch64
• Linux RISC-V
• Linux POWER
• Windows x64
• macOS x86_64
• macOS ARM64 (Apple Silicon)

Data Directory and Upgrade Notes

Avian Core v5.0.0 uses the new v5 data layout and does not automatically reuse the old Avian Core 4.x chainstate.

Users upgrading from Avian Core 4.x should expect to perform a fresh sync or use a trusted bootstrap snapshot.

Recommended upgrade process:

1. Shut down your existing Avian node cleanly.
2. Back up your wallet files.
3. Install Avian Core v5.0.0.
4. Start v5 using the new data directory.
5. Allow the node to sync from genesis, or use a bootstrap snapshot if you accept the trust trade-off.

Bootstrap snapshots are available here: https://downloads.avn.network/

Using a bootstrap snapshot is faster, but it means trusting the provided chain data instead of independently validating every block from genesis. For the highest level of trust, sync from genesis.

Compatibility Notes

• Asset creation and transfer remain legacy P2PKH-only.
• Bech32 addresses are supported for normal AVN indexing and querying.
• Bech32 addresses are not supported for asset creation or transfer.
• RIP-25 post-quantum addresses are included for testing only and are not active on mainnet.
• BIP324 v2 encrypted transport is enabled by default. Use -v2transport=0 to disable.
• Users running indexes should reindex or resync for best results.
• Taproot (witness v1) is not active on mainnet.

Credits

Thanks to the Bitcoin Core developers for the upstream codebase, the original Ravencoin developers, and the Avian community for testing, feedback, infrastructure, mining, development, and continued support.

Special thanks to everyone who tested the v5.0.0 release candidates and helped identify issues across wallets, assets, mining, indexes, RPCs, and builds.

Full Changelog

v4.2.0...v5.0.0

Note: This comparison includes the full upstream Bitcoin Core 30.2 rebase and will show thousands of commits. Avian-specific changes can be found by filtering commits from the 5.x branch history.