Bitcoin Core 32.0 Enters Final Testing Phase with Optimized Block Validation

The development of Bitcoin Core 32.0 has reached its final stage, with a release candidate now available for testing. The team is aiming to finalize the version by October 10th, but this date may change during the final testing phase.

One of the key improvements in version 32.0 is the optimization of block validation, which allows nodes to preload certain data in parallel from the chainstate database. This will reduce the load on disk I/O and improve performance for node operators.

An AI-assisted audit by Kimi K3 helped identify a memory exhaustion scenario in the HTTP server, which could allow a malicious client to send large amounts of data and cause the server to consume excessive memory. The issue was addressed with several adjustments, including setting the maximum number of HTTP clients connected simultaneously and limiting memory consumption.

Additionally, version 32.0 includes several security fixes, such as closing the walletnotify flaw on non-Windows systems and treating wallet names literally to prevent command execution. Four wallet commands will adopt PSBT v2 by default, while applications can still request the previous version.