There is a lot more to cryptocurrency than just Bitcoin. A fair few altcoins are also worth keeping an eye on these days. Litecoin, for example, will soon receive a major client update. As part of this update, users will have some new features to play around with, as well as overall quality of life improvements.
The new Litecoin Core client is entering the RC stage as we speak. This means the concept is almost locked in place, although some individual features may be addressed and changes prior to the actual release. The biggest change in this new version is how Litecoin Core 0.16.3 supports full support for Segregated Witness within the wallet itself. This will effectively help address some of the currency’s scaling concerns, which can only be considered to be a good thing.
Big Changes for Litecoin Users
More specifically, SegWit will be enabled by default for all Litecoin wallet addresses. Users can still change to a different type, though, as there is legacy and bech32 support as well. However, every new address generated in the client will be SegWit-capable by default. That in itself is a massive change, as it will help boost the overall use of SegWit on the Litecoin network. This scaling solution is activated to make life easier for everyone, hence using it is quite important.
There is another wallet address change to take into account as well. With the new Litecoin Core client, all addresses will be hierarchical deterministic by default. This does mean this new feature will only apply to newly created addresses, as previous ones will not be upgraded automatically. Sadly, this also means previous versions of Litecoin Core will automatically reject this new standard. As such, upgrading clients is of the utmost importance.
Last but not least, there are some minor changes to under-the-hood features to take note of. All of these developments will contribute to a better overall Litecoin wallet experience, which can only be considered to be a smart decision. Do keep in mind this is still a release candidate and not the finalized version of the Litecoin Core wallet. Interested users can grab the binaries for this client and experiment with all of the changes provided by the developers.
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