+# Release 1.9.8
+(This release includes features initially planned for version 2.0)
+
+* Electrum servers were upgraded to version 0.9. The new server stores
+ a Patrica tree of all UTXOs, an idea proposed by Alan Reiner in the
+ bitcointalk forum. This property allows the client to directly
+ request the balance of any address. The new commands are:
+ 1. getaddressbalance <address>
+ 2. getaddressunspent <address>
+ 3. getutxoaddress <txid> <pos>
+
+* Command-line commands that require a connection to the network spawn
+ a daemon, that remains connected and handles subsequent
+ commands. The daemon terminates itself if it remains unused for more
+ than one minute. The purpose of this is to make scripting more
+ efficient. For example, a bash script using many electrum commands
+ will open only one connection.
+
# Release 1.9.7
* Fix for offline signing
* Various bugfixes