Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I wanted to join the network and contribute to it, so I downloaded Bitcoin Core from the bitcoin.org page. Little did I know, in the process of trying to verify the download (I am a novice in that, just following the steps in bitzuma's tutorial) I understood the latest Bitcoin Core software version was on another website, which is referred to as the official one.

I started syncing with the network straight away as I downloaded the software in the first place, and now is at 77% of progress.

Do I have to stop and download the latest release?
What issues may I incur if I continue using the 22.0?
Why does bitcoin.org, which is supposed to be the official bitcoin site, redirect to a version of the Bitcoin Core software that is old and implicitly non-official?

Not necessarily, but you can if you want to. The new version will just continue with your currently downloaded blockchain.

I'm not sure. Most of the features will work just fine though.

They've been behind for a while, I can't tell why. You can just download from BitcoinCore.org (https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/) (bitcoincore.org is what's shown under "About" in my Bitcoin Core installation).

Take not that there is no official bitcoin website. Since bitcoin is decentralized and isn't like a company owned by someone, it doesn't have an official website at all.
From About bitcoin.org (https://bitcoin.org/en/about-us):


As mentioned by LoyceV above, you can download the latest version of bitcoin core from Bitcoincore.org. That's the official website of Bitcoin Core.

Thanks for the note;

Since bitcoin comes with a software, I suppose there has to be a source/website where to find the original software; Isn't it so that there must be an official source, whence the original software is firstly available? It seems that the necessity to have a singular origin, which makes "centralized" at least the availability of the bitcoin software, is unavoidable. Or am I missing something?

Any website has to be owned and controlled by someone. There is no one in the world qualified to own the bitcoin official website.
Also, if there's an official website, then the community have to trust the owner of the website. Bitcoin is a trustless system and that's not possible.

Bitcoin Core 23.0 and 24.0 make this statement on it's release notes.



Although in practice i do not experience any bug or notice performance difference.

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1. People usually refer Bitcoin Core (previously called "Bitcoin Qt" and "Bitcoin") as reference software, not official software.
2. Bitcoin Core is just one of many software to run full node. Although i can't deny Bitcoin Core is most popular option to run full node.

Thanks. Is there a way to join the bitcoin network or become a full node without having to pass from an owned source that makes the/a software available? Because, I suppose, to become a full node is necessary to have a specific software, right?

Note that Bitcoin core is open-source and you don't have to trust the website you are downloading the software from.
You can download the source code, review the code and compile bitcoin core from the source. (Of course, if you have the required knowledge of that.)

Thank you!

You don't have to download from Bitcoin Core's website as hosseinimr93 mentioned. But if you don't know how to compile the client yourself and you aren't interested in learning how to do it, what else can you do? You can either download the software in its compiled state from BitcoinCore.org or you can get it from someone else. But if there are trust issues with BitcoinCore.org, what reasons would you have to trust the other party more? If I said, I will give you the needed files, why would you trust me? If you decided to download it from a torrent, why would you trust that uploader more than you would trust BitcoinCore.org or me? It's an endless circle if you start going down that road.

Trusting something or someone is unfortunately part of the process unless you can verify the code yourself and compile your own binaries.   

Speaking of, it seems like we might finally get a release post on bitcoincore.org and on this forum for v24.0.1, with this version being tagged ~30 minutes ago (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/releases/tag/v24.0.1). It looks like v24.0 will be nuked entirely almost a month after its release, mainly because of a significant bug involved in creating transactions. Worth upgrading to v24.0.1 if you are one of the 400-500 nodes already running v24.0.

More info below:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-24.0.1.md
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/26616