Good morning,
On Monday, I unveiled a new project that I am ideating called All Protocol Devs. In short, it’s a meetup series to encourage networking and knowledge-sharing among full-time developers across different public blockchain protocols.
My motivation for All Protocol Devs is to address the issue of siloed development that often leads to developer burnout and blind spots in protocol design. There’s a ton to be gained from one another that protocol developers in open-source and decentralized crypto communities have a hard time gleaning because of a lack of dedicated spaces for this kind of connection.
Today, I want to share a bit more about the backstory that inspired the idea for All Protocol Devs and how I envision it bolstering the other projects I’ve started here on my Substack and through my advisory firm, Protocol Watch.
Yours truly,
Christine D. Kim
🔔 Programming note: Starting next week, this newsletter will be published one day earlier on Tuesday mornings, rather than Wednesday mornings. This is to better space out the emails you receive from my Substack throughout the week.
As a reminder, if you ever feel you are receiving too many emails from me, you can adjust your email preferences by content series. More information on customizing your Substack subscription here.
⏱️Core Release Schedule
(For background on the Bitcoin software development process, refer to the Bitcoin Governance 101 document in the BTC Toolkit.)
First, a quick overview of Bitcoin Core’s software release schedule and the status of the next major release:
Latest Stable Major Release: Bitcoin Core 30.0*
Release Date: October 13, 2025
Latest Stable Minor Release: Bitcoin Core 29.3
Release Date: February 11, 2026
Upcoming Major Release: Bitcoin Core 31.0
Target Release Date: April 10, 2026
Open issues: 12
Closed issues: 88
Milestone progress: 88%
The previous week’s snapshot showed 18 open issues, 66 closed, and a milestone progress of 78%.
*Warning: Bitcoin Core v30.0 contains a wallet migration bug that may result in a loss of funds. A fix for the bug has been included in v30.2.
🖊️ Meeting Log
An overview of last Thursday’s Bitcoin Core developers meeting, sourced from the Gnusha Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Logs.
Pull Requests (PRs)
Proposed code changes to Bitcoin Core and their respective statuses:
PR #34654 (
BlockMapandCChainConcurrency Improvement): Draft. Feedback requested.PR #31132 (validation, fetch block inputs on parallel threads 3x faster IBD): Work-in-progress.
PR #34641 (node, scale default
-dbcachewith system RAM): Work-in-progress.PR #34165 (coins, don’t mutate main cache when connecting block): Merged.
Issues
Descriptions of bugs and areas for improvement in Bitcoin Core and their respective statuses:
Issue #34542 (Erlay Conceptual Discussion): Feedback requested.
Issue #30289 (Cluster mempool tracking issue): Closed. Work on the cluster mempool initiative is now officially complete, and the working group for it has been dissolved.
Discussion Topics
No other meeting topics were raised during last Thursday’s meeting.
☁️ That’s all for my summary of Bitcoin Core development. Continue reading for my insights. To read the rest of the newsletter, make sure you are signed up for a premium subscription:
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☀️ I also offer professional consulting services for businesses building on Bitcoin. If you’d like to learn more, please visit my advisory services website:
🧭 Insights
Last April, I started this Substack with a simple goal of demystifying Ethereum protocol development and governance.
It wasn’t an especially lofty goal, as I had already spent years reporting on and researching Ethereum. The difference, though, this time was independence. I would be doing this work on my own as an independent content creator.
Then, in July, I expanded my coverage to Bitcoin. This shift was motivated by a desire to take my skills as an Ethereum researcher to a new level by contextualizing its evolution with the evolution of the world’s first and most valuable open-source blockchain protocol, Bitcoin.
