Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2026, at 10:00am ET
Hosted by: David - Manager of Core Dev Team
Duration: ~45 mins
1. Agenda Overview
- Stacks 3.4.0.0.0 Release Update
- Developments & Network Ops
- Archival vs Pruned Nodes Discussion
2. Key Meeting Highlights
Stacks 3.4.0.0.0 Release Update
- Release Details:
- All tests passed for release version 3.4.0.0.0
- Hard fork includes SIP-39, 40, and 42
- ETA: 1-2 hours from meeting time.
- Check for Releases here: Releases · stacks-network/stacks-core · GitHub
- Activation Timeline:
- Activation estimate: ~April 2, 2026 - check WEN Activate site to keep track
- Bitcoin block 943,333 - triggers Stacks 3.4 epoch start.
- Testnet upgrade:
- Will be coordinated once 3.4 public release is out
- Target by this Thursday at 4:00 PM ET
- Testnet upgrade announcement
Developments & Network Ops
- Code Coverage Improvements:
- Replaced CodeCov with Coveralls, reducing upload time.
- Aggregates ~300 test results into a single file.
- Performance Enhancements:
- Experimental changes synced ~15,000 blocks faster than the current release.
- Team:
- Radu moving from Stacks Foundation to Stacks Labs. Continues adversarial testing and identifying security vulnerability.
- Work mostly behind closed doors due to security sensitivity.
- Rendezvous v1.0.0:
- Beta release (incoming) will simplify smart contract fuzzing testing.
Archival vs Pruned Nodes Discussion
- Pruned Nodes:
- Compress old MARF state for massive space savings.
- All nodes maintain full copy of “historic blocks”.
- Trust and Verification:
- Authenticate compressed state against Bitcoin chain.
- All historical blocks remain available for verification.
- Archival nodes can reconstruct from pruned nodes if needed.
- No attack vector: always possible to regenerate full archival node from block data
- Thought experiment: treating Stacks Labs as an adversary and people still being able to verify data independently
- Trust is anchored in Bitcoin commitments and verifiable block data, not any single company.
- Miners, AI and Thermodynamics:
- Discussion of whether hyperscalers renting hardware and mining together could enable a 51% attack
- Reference to Pieter Wuille’s “fork.lol” site estimates: even with all current miners colluding, rewriting the full Bitcoin chain would take on the order of around 3 years
- Since Stacks history is anchored to Bitcoin, with commitments in nearly every Bitcoin block, rewriting Stacks history would require rewriting Bitcoin history, which is not feasible, demonstrate above.
- AI cannot “fork Bitcoin” due to thermodynamic constraints.
Resources & References
- Release Announcement: Stacks 3.4 Release
- Testnet Upgrade Announcement
- Activation Math Tool: when-activation
- Fork.lol by Pieter Wuille
- Stacks Core Repository: GitHub
- Rendezvous Full Docs
- Rendezvous Tutorial
Call to Action
- Join the Community Calls: Take part in the bi-weekly calls to stay informed, ask questions, and collaborate directly with core contributors. → Add to Your Calendar
- Contribute to Core repo: Engage with the Stacks core repo, open issues, review PRs, or jump into community channels to help move things forward.