diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 3bba8262c..53e66f114 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ This software is distributed under the [LGPL 2.1](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lg
 PHPMailer is available on [Packagist](https://packagist.org/packages/phpmailer/phpmailer) (using semantic versioning), and installation via [Composer](https://getcomposer.org) is the recommended way to install PHPMailer. Just add this line to your `composer.json` file:
 
 ```json
-"phpmailer/phpmailer": "^6.7.1"
+"phpmailer/phpmailer": "^6.8.0"
 ```
 
 or run
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
index 1d4202426..8a1c5c7e9 100644
--- a/VERSION
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -1 +1 @@
-6.7.1
\ No newline at end of file
+6.8.0
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/PHPMailer.php b/src/PHPMailer.php
index bdadba3d3..a644d2cac 100644
--- a/src/PHPMailer.php
+++ b/src/PHPMailer.php
@@ -750,7 +750,7 @@ class PHPMailer
      *
      * @var string
      */
-    const VERSION = '6.7.1';
+    const VERSION = '6.8.0';
 
     /**
      * Error severity: message only, continue processing.
diff --git a/src/POP3.php b/src/POP3.php
index 4ae52fb19..d025689e8 100644
--- a/src/POP3.php
+++ b/src/POP3.php
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ class POP3
      *
      * @var string
      */
-    const VERSION = '6.7.1';
+    const VERSION = '6.8.0';
 
     /**
      * Default POP3 port number.
diff --git a/src/SMTP.php b/src/SMTP.php
index 3a55ade4c..fc4b781a5 100644
--- a/src/SMTP.php
+++ b/src/SMTP.php
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ class SMTP
      *
      * @var string
      */
-    const VERSION = '6.7.1';
+    const VERSION = '6.8.0';
 
     /**
      * SMTP line break constant.