AvianNetwork/Avian v5.0.0-rc4

v5.0.0 RC4 – Smaug

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Avian Core v5.0.0-rc4 "Smaug" Release Notes

Avian Core v5.0.0-rc4 is the fourth release candidate for the upcoming v5.0.0 major release. The headline addition is post-quantum address support via RIP-25, alongside RPC improvements, mempool fixes, and a full rebranding of tooling and documentation.

Highlights

RIP-25: ML-DSA-44 post-quantum addresses (witness v2)

• Implemented ML-DSA-44 (CRYSTALS-Dilithium) post-quantum signature scheme as Avian witness v2 addresses
• New address type provides resistance against quantum computing attacks on ECDSA
• Integrated liboqs 0.12.0 as a depends package, built with a minimal ML-DSA-44-only profile
• New RPCs and wallet support for creating, funding, and signing transactions with post-quantum keys
• Consensus activation gated behind a deployment flag, not yet active on mainnet

Dual-algorithm RPC improvements

• getblock now returns powtype and per-algorithm difficulty fields, making it easier to inspect which proof-of-work algorithm produced each block

Mempool reliability

• Fixed missing CheckTxAssets validation and pre-activation guard in mempool acceptance, preventing invalid asset transactions from entering the mempool before the asset activation height

Restored RPCs

• getblockdeltas and getblockhashes have been restored; these were inadvertently removed during the v5 rebase

Tooling and documentation rebranding

• All contrib scripts, tools, and READMEs rebranded from Bitcoin to Avian
• All user-facing documentation updated to reflect Avian binary names, config file, and data directory paths

Notes
This release does not activate RIP-25 post-quantum addresses on mainnet.

What's Changed

• rpc: add powtype and dual-algo difficulty to getblock by @cdonnachie in #242
• Add missing CheckTxAssets and pre-activation guard to mempool acceptance by @cdonnachie in #243
• Fix/restore getblockdeltas getblockhashes by @cdonnachie in #244
• RIP-25: ML-DSA-44 post-quantum addresses (witness v2) by @cdonnachie in #245
• contrib: rebrand from Bitcoin to Avian across contrib/ files by @cdonnachie in #246
• doc: rebrand Bitcoin binary names, paths, and data dirs to Avian by @cdonnachie in #247

Full Changelog: v5.0.0-rc3...v5.0.0-rc4