Bitcoin News

Story: Bitcoin Core 32 Aims to Slash Fees and Fix Critical Memory Bug

By Steven Anderson

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How Fee Estimation Changes in Version 32. Right now, Bitcoin Core estimates transaction fees by looking at what got paid in previous blocks.

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Security Flaw Fixed, PSBT Format Updated. There's a security fix baked into version 32 that probably deserved more attention than it got.

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The Memory Bug That Sent Usage From 46 MB to 3.2 GB. Here's where things got genuinely concerning during testing.

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Bitcoin Core is heading into its final stretch before a major release. The first release candidate for version 32.

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It's a bigger update than the version number might suggest. Fee estimation, security, memory management, transaction formats, server infrastructure — developers touched pretty…

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Version 32 adds a second estimator that watches those pending transactions directly. The dual-estimator setup means users could end up paying lower fees when network congestion…

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Nodes will also fetch transaction data faster. The update enables multi-threaded data retrieval, with eight threads running by default. Less waiting around for data to load.

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There's a security fix baked into version 32 that probably deserved more attention than it got. A flaw introduced back in Bitcoin Core 24.

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Bitcoin Core 32 also moves to PSBT version 2 — the newer format for partially signed transactions.

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Read also: Bitcoin Plummets After Senate Blocks Clarity Act in Narrow Vote

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Here's where things got genuinely concerning during testing. Bitcoin Core 32 replaces the existing web server with a new implementation.

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The problem: data from clients was piling up in memory faster than the server could process it.

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The REST interface had a related problem. A separate test showed memory climbing from 46 MB to approximately 3 GB in just one minute under similar unauthenticated connection load.

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After the fix, the same test produced memory usage of around 3 MB. That's a pretty dramatic turnaround.

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Related: AKE Soars 54.4% as Bitcoin and Crypto Market Faces 4.8% Decline

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