Litecoin Core 0.18.1 has officially been released, in a post submitted to the Litecoin project blog, Adrian Gallagher the lead Developer stated:

“We are pleased to release Litecoin Core 0.18.1. This is a new major version release, including new features, various bugfixes and performance improvements, as well as updated translations. It is recommended for all users to upgrade to this version.”

Among the changes are refinements to block and transaction handling, the network code and P2P protocol, GUI, wallet and build system along with the typical plethora of new RPC’s and depreciation of many others. Over 100 changes have made their way into this major release. A full list of changes in greater detail can be found in Gallagher’s Blog post.

Core currently accounts for just over 90% of the entire network according to data provided from Blockchair, with the latest build 0.17.1 making up around 50%. It also appears that just over half of the network is ran from the US, Germany and France although this does not account for all available connections or TOR enabled nodes where these countries are popular exit points.

Core is the backbone of the network which allows businesses to fetch and handle data as well as day to day operations. Updates like these are vital to the health and advancement of the network and users who choose to run a full node help signal their vote in the direction of the project by verifying their own instance of the blockchain and setting the rules. The latest Core release is available to download via Litecoin.com.l