Bitcoin Core 32 Enters Final Testing Ahead of October 10 Release

Bitcoin Core 32 entered final testing on September 14, with its first release candidate marked and the full release expected on October 10. According to ChainCatcher, the update does not change Bitcoin consensus rules and instead focuses on fee estimation, faster block processing, and security fixes. The new version adds a fee estimator based on pending transactions, alongside the existing estimator that relies on historical block fees, allowing recommended fees to be lowered more quickly when network congestion eases. It also lets nodes use multiple threads to fetch transaction data from the database at the same time, with 8 threads enabled by default to reduce waiting time while catching up with the blockchain. Developers also fixed a command execution vulnerability affecting non-Windows systems that had existed since Bitcoin Core 24. When walletnotify is enabled, the flaw could have allowed an authenticated user to run commands on the node host through a specially crafted wallet name. In addition, four commands used to create partially signed transactions will default to PSBT version 2 format. A memory exhaustion issue in the new web server was also patched before release after audits found that 16 unauthenticated REST connections could raise node memory usage from 46 MB to about 3 GB in roughly one minute.