OF 1,936 KNOTS NODES ON BITCOIN, FOUR REPORT CORE’S CRASH FIX — KNOTS’ OWN PATCHED BUILD ENFORCES THE BLAKE2B FORK — THE OTHER FIX IS ONE DEVELOPER’S RELEASE CANDIDATE
On October 28, 2026, Bitcoin Core published a bug in which “a malicious peer can trivially crash any Windows, macOS or BSD node it is connected to.” The fixes are in 29.5, 30.4, 31.2 and 32.1. A second bug lets a peer slowly fill a node’s memory. Bitcoin Knots runs on Core’s code, so it had the same lines. I counted who has the fix. A crawl at 12:58 UTC on November 2, 2026, at block 974,257, lists 1,936 nodes with Knots in their version string and a recent block height. Four report a fixed base. For scale, 4,996 of 16,549 Core nodes report one, 30.2%, five days in. Core nodes are slow too. They do have a final release to download.
Knots’ own project left this chain. Its releases since 29.4 enforce BIP-110, and since 29.4.1 they use BLAKE2b proof of work, on the minority chain that split off on August 8, 2026. The download on bitcoinknots.org is 29.4.3, and its socket code still has the old line. A 29.5 release candidate Luke Dashjr signed on October 31 has the fix, but its code carries the NODE_BLAKE2B flag, which it says “means the node enforces the BLAKE2b hardfork rules.” Installing it doesn’t patch a node on bitcoin. It moves the node off bitcoin.
So where does a Knots user on bitcoin go? Of the 1,936, 1,417 sit on 29.3.knots20260507, which one package README calls “pinned forever to the last non-RDTS Knots release.” The way out is Knots SHA256, a separate project on GitHub under the name paulscode. Its notes say “Consensus is identical to Bitcoin Core.” Its final release, 31.1, predates the fix; 41 nodes run it. Its 31.2 release candidate, posted November 1, has the fix in the code. Those are the four nodes. Its StartOS package checks one maintainer’s signature, with the required signer count set to 1. Any Knots user can also move to Core 29.5, which accepts the same blocks but drops Knots’ relay filters.
The limits. Version strings are self-reported, and a private build could carry a patch without saying so. Linux nodes aren’t exposed to the crash, and a crawl can’t see operating systems. Crawls also disagree: Dashjr’s data at 13:00 UTC shows 275 listening Knots nodes without the fork flags and estimates about 4,947 more it can’t reach. It lists no fixed Knots version on bitcoin either. Core’s notes also promise three more medium and high bugs fixed in 30.0, due around November 10, and every 29-based node should read those. A node is how you check the rules yourself. You can check yours: bitcoind -version. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $77,890.