v0.5.0 - Christmas Edition

Fedimint v0.5.0 is here! 🎉

Some highlights since our last major (0.4) release:

• Tor support for client-federation connections (see Connector enum) (thx @oleonardolima!)
• Stabilization of v2 of our lightning module. While not being rolled out by default yet integration and testing is encouraged. (thx @joschisan and @m1sterc001guy!)
• Upgraded rust-bitcoin (and related ecosystem-crates) from 0.30 to 0.32, which should be a stable shelling point for the foreseeable future and leads fewer duplicates dependencies (thx @tvolk131!)
• Multiple bug fixes that were already backported to 0.3 and 0.4, but came out of refactoring and review work of modules (thx @bradleystachurski and @joschisan!)
• CI improvements to increase our agility while maintaining compatibility guarantees (thx @dpc and @bradleystachurski!)

As usual, there was lots more maintenance, debugging and integration going on in the background. Big thanks to everyone who contributes getting Fedimint closer to being the go-to, bulletproof community custody tool in Bitcoin!

I also asked GPT to summarize what else happened, ymmv:

Features & Improvements

Lightning Network

• Preparation for BOLT12 invoice support
• Enhanced LNv2 module client API cleanup
• Improved LN module initialization and offline handling
• Gateway fee configuration improvements
• Fixed LDK create invoice issues
• Enhanced LN module thresholds handling

Performance & Optimization

• Faster consensus synchronization
  • Single session outcome request per session
  • Removed delay in signed session outcomes
• Optimized Rustls configuration
• Improved block sync and chain tracking
• Enhanced self-sync mechanism with checksum verification

Security & Authentication

• Made sync_to_chain authenticated
• Added security checks for ciphertext validation
• Improved secret hash comparison mechanisms

Developer Experience

• Added structured logging for devimint channel operations
• Improved cargo and git hash version handling
• Enhanced debugging tools for consensus issues
• Better panic messages and logging

Infrastructure

• Added support for WASM compilation
• Improved RocksDB implementation
• Added default BTC RPC environment variables in NixOS module
• Enhanced gateway registration process
• Better handling of dependencies and build profiles

Testing & CI

• Added gateway upgrade tests for LDK gateway
• Re-enabled LNv2 inter-federation tests
• Improved test shuffling for better coverage
• Enhanced upgrade testing framework

These changes appear to focus on improving Lightning Network functionality, system reliability, and developer tooling while maintaining security and performance optimizations.