update RELEASE-NOTES for 4.0.0b0

RELEASE-NOTES

@@ -1,8 +1,68 @@
-# Release 4.0 - (Not released yet; release notes are incomplete)
+# Release 4.0.0b0 - Codename? (June XX, 2020)
+
+ * Experimental support for the Lightning Network
+   - Lightning is disabled by default. It can be enabled, per-wallet,
+     in the GUI, in Wallet>Information (or init_lightning cmd). Currently
+     Lightning is restricted to HD p2wpkh wallets (including watch-only
+     and hardware wallets).
+   - LN protocol details: dataloss_protect and static_remotekey are
+     required; varonion and payment_secret are implemented, MPP not yet.
+     Channels are not announced ('private'), forwarding is disabled.
+     The default 'to_self_delay' CSV is 1 week.
+   - The Qt GUI, CLI/RPC, and the kivy GUI all have LN support,
+     with feature-richness in that order.
+   - Submarine swaps: the GUI integrates a service that offers
+     atomically exchanging on-chain and lightning bitcoins for a fee.
+     Electrum Technologies runs a central server for this, powered by
+     the Boltz backend.
+   - Static channel backups: a backup for each channel can be exported
+     that can be used to trigger a remote-force-close. These are
+     encrypted from a key derived from the wallet's xpub, and can
+     be imported into another copy of the same wallet or a watch-only
+     version of it. (the force close is not triggered automatically,
+     imported backups can live inside a wallet file)
+   - watchtowers?
+ * Support Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (BIP-174) has been
+   fully integrated. (#5721) The previously used custom partial tx
+   format is removed, i.e. the partial transaction format has been
+   incompatibly changed. Users should make sure that all instances of
+   Electrum they use to co-sign or offline sign, are updated together.
+ * Hardware wallets: several fixes in general; notable changes:
+   - The BitBox02 is now supported (#5993)
+   - Multisig support for Coldcard (#5440)
+   - Compatibility with latest Trezor fw (#6064, #6198, #5692)
+ * Dependencies (see README for install instructions):
+   - libsecp256k1 is now required (previously optional). python-ecdsa
+     remains a dependency but it is now only used for DNSSEC.
+   - Added: either one of pycryptodomex or cryptography is now required,
+     mainly due to LN (previously pycryptodomex was optional, for fast AES)
+   - Removed: jsonrpclib-pelix, the JSON-RPC library used for CLI/daemon
+ * Qt GUI: several changes, notably:
+   - Separation between output selection and transaction finalization.
+   - Coin selection moved to the Coins tab, and it affects all txns,
+     e.g. RBF fee-bumping, LN channel opens, submarine swaps.
+   - Editable tx preview dialog that allows e.g. changing the locktime,
+     toggling RBF, and manual coinjoins.
+ * Http PayServer changes: the electrum-merchant repository has been
+   integrated directly into the main codebase.
+ * Android:
+   - We now build two APKs, one for ARMv7 and one for ARMv8
+   - The kivy GUI now supports importing BIP39 seeds
+   - Each wallet on kivy now can have a separate generic password,
+     using which the wallet files are encrypted. An optional PIN,
+     shared among all wallets, can be added to get prompted for spends.
+ * The API of several CLI/RPC commands have changed, and several new
+   commands have been introduced (mainly for LN).
+ * Distributables:
+   - The .tar.gz source dist is now built reproducibly.
+     Relatedly, we no longer distribute a .zip sdist.
+   - The MacOS binary now conforms to macOS 10.15; it is notarized
+     by Apple. This required bumping the min macOS version to 10.13.
+     Startup times should now be faster on 10.15. (#6128, #6225)
+ * Transactions:
+   - we now grind low R for ECDSA signatures to match bitcoind (#5820)
+ * Lots and lots of other minor bugfixes and improvements.
 
- * Lightning Network
- * Qt GUI: Separation between output selection and transaction finalization.
- * Http PayServer can be configured from GUI
 
 # Release 3.3.8 - (July 11, 2019)
 

electrum/version.py

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-ELECTRUM_VERSION = '4.0.0a0' # version of the client package
-APK_VERSION = '4.0.0.0'      # read by buildozer.spec
+ELECTRUM_VERSION = '4.0.0b0'   # version of the client package
+APK_VERSION = '4.0.0.0'        # read by buildozer.spec
 
 PROTOCOL_VERSION = '1.4'     # protocol version requested