On October 13th, it was reported that Bitcoin developers have once again disclosed details of a serious software vulnerability. According to a senior Core developer, more than 13% of home and commercial computers that execute Bitcoin rules are vulnerable to remote shutdown.

The latest update to Bitcoin Core, the primary open-source software for connecting the blockchain behind the world's largest cryptocurrency, has been released. The v26.0 update includes experimental support for the "v2" transport protocol, which aims to encrypt communication between nodes to reduce the risk of attacks via tampering with transactions. The proposal seeks to raise the costs for performing such attacks substantially, primarily through the use of unauthenticated, opportunistic transport encryption. The existing V1 transport protocol is still supported, but users must enable V2 to start using it. The upgrade also includes changes to remote call procedures (RPCs) and Bitcoin's graphical user interface (GUI).