Postern Labs
MAINNET BETA. Unaudited · k=8 gate now active (hardened from the earlier relaxed k=4) · not a security claim by itself · low hashrate → blocks slow for now · very few nodes, 51%-attackable · not a security · for evaluation — not to protect real secrets yet. Full disclaimer →

Release notes · changelog

What shipped.

A plain, unaudited log of what actually went live — not plans. In-progress work is deliberately kept off this page until it ships. Newest first.

Honesty baseline

  • Mainnet beta — not a security claim. The k=8 gate is now active (hardened from k=4; not a security claim by itself); the chain is unaudited and 51%-attackable. The coin is not a security and not an asset — no price, no value claim.
  • Ownerless protocol. Bloch changes are non-consensus operator conveniences shipped as candidate improvements any node operator may adopt — nobody mandates them, and Postern speaks for no one. Postern-product changes are owned and operated by Postern.
  • Only shipped items appear here. If it is a branch, a design, or "merged but not deployed," it is not on this page.

2026-07-15 · updates

Also shipped today.

Vestnik node-setup assistant
An opt-in chat helper on Run a node, scoped strictly to building, peering, mining, and troubleshooting a Bloch node — nothing else. It runs the one bit of JavaScript on the site and forwards a question to a language model only when you send it; it stores nothing. Live.
Reference mining pool — relaunched
The Postern-operated reference pool was rebuilt and redeployed (postern-pool.fly.dev: stratum :3335, dashboard over HTTPS), and the site's connection instructions were corrected to the working endpoint. Fee 0% — no revenue line touches the token. One independent pool among any number; verify or run your own.
Public bootstrap node — --max-peers 500
The demo bootstrap node was redeployed with the raised peer cap, so newcomers are no longer dropped once it fills (see the peering upgrade below). Non-consensus; an external node now connects where it previously could not.
Site fixes
Added a Pool tab and this Releases tab; fixed the Pool nav link (a stale redirect sent it to the home page); corrected the pool endpoint text; refreshed an outbound profile link.

2026-07-15 · Bloch peering upgrade

Past the ~50-node wall — three non-consensus changes.

PoW, block validation, serialization, and GhostDAG are untouched. The changes are operator knobs and a mining-readiness guard:

--max-peers <N>
The inbound peer cap was a hardcoded 50 — a bootstrap/hub node dropped every newcomer once full (the "~50-node wall"). It is now an operator setting. The public bootstrap runs --max-peers 500; a leaf node keeps it modest.
--dns-seed <host>
Opt-in, Bitcoin-style cold-start: the node resolves a hostname's A/AAAA records and dials them as peers. DEFAULT_SEEDS stays empty — non-privileged: run, or point at, any seed you trust.
Mining-readiness guard
A node told to join a network (has --peer/--dns-seed) no longer mines until it has connected and evaluated the network tip — so a fresh miner can't fork from genesis. Intentional solo/island miners are unaffected. Also fixed an IBD latch that left a synced node paused forever (is_syncing only cleared on a message no peer ever sends).

Setup, correctly

Join, sync, then mine.

# 1) join & sync FIRST (relay)
./target/release/bloch --testnet --data-dir ./bloch-data \
  --listen /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/16110 \
  --peer /dns4/<a-reachable-node>/tcp/16110

# 2) confirm it caught up
./target/release/bloch-cli getpeerinfo      # peer_count > 0
./target/release/bloch-cli getblockcount    # reaches the tip

# 3) only then add --mine  (a hub also adds --max-peers 500)

Full root-cause write-up: Peering & the ~50-node wall (PDF) ↓. Building/running instructions: Run a node.