This build aims to be the final 2.4.x series release after issues were found that prevented 2.4.8 from being so.
As such it will likely represent the final Qt UI release with 2.5 series of builds replacing Qt with the electron UI.
CORE - Implement several important fixes to the fast path of the "index based" portion of the coin cache, these issues would have resulted in nodes temporarily falling out of sync (until restarted) in some instances had the fast path been turned on however it has been off until now
CORE - Turn on the fast path for "index based" portion of the coin caches, this should drastically improve node performance in some instances
CORE - Introduce optimised sha256 implementations to take advantage of available CPU features (SSE4, neon etc.) when available/possible
CORE - Various performance improvements, removal of lock contention in some instances
CORE - Various improvements to mutexes to make it easier to spot issues as well as for better performance
CORE - Improved debug logging in various places throghout the program
CORE - Update linux builds to GCC 11
CORE - Update macOS builds to clang 14 (sdk 12)
CORE - Update android builds to clang 12 (ndk r23b)
CORE - Update windows builds to GCC 10
CORE - Switch to guix instead of gitian for official builds (all except macOS which will switch also for subsequent releases)
CORE - With all compilers updated we are now able to target C++20
CORE - Update libraries (boost 1.77.0; zmq 4.3.4; univalue 1.0.4; leveldb 1.22+)
CORE - Flush chainstate more frequently to prevent nodes having to resync if they terminate uncleanly after a full sync etc.
LITE - Fix issue that was preventing lite wallet from functioning on testnet
LITE - Fix a crash on macOS at program exit
LITE - Fix/improve behaviour of loading/synchronisation screen and make it smoother
LITE - Native M1/arm64 builds macOS
RPC - Add a 'loaded' paramater to results of 'getmempoolinfo' command
RPC - Improve/fix 'fundrawtransaction' command that failed in some instances
RPC - Improve/fix help text for several commands
QA - Introduction of more unit and functional tests
Dozens of other stability, code quality, build system, testing etc. related fixes and improvements.