This is a minor release which ships the features required for building custom channels, alongside the usual bug fixes and stability improvements.
Of note are the bitcoind v28.0 compatibility fix and an optimization for payment requests (invoices) that removes unnecessary size expansion. See release notes for full set of changes.
Verifying the Release
In order to verify the release, you'll need to have gpg or gpg2 installed on your system. Once you've obtained a copy (and hopefully verified that as well), you'll first need to import the keys that have signed this release if you haven't done so already: 
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/master/scripts/keys/roasbeef.asc | gpg --import
Once you have the required PGP keys, you can verify the release (assuming manifest-roasbeef-v0.18.4-beta.sig and manifest-v0.18.4-beta.txt are in the current directory) with:
gpg --verify manifest-roasbeef-v0.18.4-beta.sig manifest-v0.18.4-beta.txt
You should see the following if the verification was successful:
gpg: Signature made Wed Dec 18 20:56:51 2024 WAT
gpg:                using EDDSA key 296212681AADF05656A2CDEE90525F7DEEE0AD86
gpg: Good signature from "Olaoluwa Osuntokun <laolu32@gmail.com>" [ultimate]
That will verify the signature of the manifest file, which ensures integrity and authenticity of the archive you've downloaded locally containing the binaries. Next, depending on your operating system, you should then re-compute the sha256 hash of the archive with shasum -a 256 <filename>, compare it with the corresponding one in the manifest file, and ensure they match exactly.
Verifying the Release Timestamp
From this new version onwards, in addition time-stamping the git tag with OpenTimestamps, we'll also now timestamp the manifest file along with its signature. Two new files are now included along with the rest of our release artifacts: manifest-roasbeef-v0.18.4-beta.txt.asc.ots.
Assuming you have the opentimestamps client installed locally, the timestamps can be verified with the following commands: 
ots verify manifest-roasbeef-v0.18.4-beta.sig.ots -f manifest-roasbeef-v0.18.4-beta.sig
Alternatively, the OpenTimestamps website can be used to verify timestamps if one doesn't have a bitcoind instance accessible locally.
These timestamps should give users confidence in the integrity of this release even after the key that signed the release expires. 
Verifying the Release Binaries
Our release binaries are fully reproducible. Third parties are able to verify that the release binaries were produced properly without having to trust the release manager(s). See our reproducible builds guide for how this can be achieved.
The release binaries are compiled with go1.22.6, which is required by verifiers to arrive at the same ones.
They include the following build tags: autopilotrpc, signrpc, walletrpc, chainrpc, invoicesrpc, neutrinorpc, routerrpc, watchtowerrpc, monitoring, peersrpc, kvdb_postrgres, kvdb_etcd and kvdb_sqlite. Note that these are already included in the release script, so they do not need to be provided.
The make release command can be used to ensure one rebuilds with all the same flags used for the release. If one wishes to build for only a single platform, then make release sys=<OS-ARCH> tag=<tag> can be used. 
Finally, you can also verify the tag itself with the following command:
$ git verify-tag v0.18.4-beta
gpg: Signature made Tue Dec 17 21:18:07 2024 WAT
gpg:                using RSA key F4FC70F07310028424EFC20A8E4256593F177720
gpg: Good signature from "Oliver Gugger <gugger@gmail.com>" [unknown]
Verifying the Docker Images
To verify the lnd and lncli binaries inside the docker images against the signed, reproducible release binaries, there is a verification script in the image that can be called (before starting the container for example):
shell
$ docker run --rm --entrypoint="" lightninglabs/lnd:v0.18.4-beta /verify-install.sh v0.18.4-beta
$ OK=$?
$ if [ "$OK" -ne "0" ]; then echo "Verification failed!"; exit 1; done
$ docker run lightninglabs/lnd [command-line options]
Building the Contained Release
Users are able to rebuild the target release themselves without having to fetch any of the dependencies. In order to do so, assuming
that vendor.tar.gz and lnd-source-v0.18.4-beta.tar.gz are in the current directory, follow these steps:
tar -xvzf vendor.tar.gz
tar -xvzf lnd-source-v0.18.4-beta.tar.gz
GO111MODULE=on go install -v -mod=vendor -ldflags "-X github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/build.Commit=v0.18.4-beta" ./cmd/lnd
GO111MODULE=on go install -v -mod=vendor -ldflags "-X github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/build.Commit=v0.18.4-beta" ./cmd/lncli
The -mod=vendor flag tells the go build command that it doesn't need to fetch the dependencies, and instead, they're all enclosed in the local vendor directory. 
Additionally, it's now possible to use the enclosed release.sh script to bundle a release for a specific system like so: 
make release sys="linux-arm64 darwin-amd64"
⚡️⚡️⚡️ OK, now to the rest of the release notes! ⚡️⚡️⚡️
Release Notes
https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/0-18-4-branch/docs/release-notes/release-notes-0.18.4.md
Contributors (Alphabetical Order)

Boris Nagaev
Elle Mouton
ffranr
George Tsagkarelis
Jonathan Harvey-Buschel
Keagan McClelland
Matt Morehouse
Olaoluwa Osuntokun
Oliver Gugger
Yong Yu
Ziggie