Blockstream Quarterly Update – Q4 2025

In the most recent quarterly update, we glance again on Blockstream’s rising attain within the business, among the many group, and overseas. A collection of shopper product updates, the Distributed Lab integration, and international convention presence ensured our workforce completed this yr in full dash.

Major Q4 2025 Highlights

Blockstream’s Q4 was 1 / 4 outlined by execution. Liquid Bootcamp initiatives expanded in Latin America, the workforce grew via new integrations, and a gentle cadence of releases strengthened wallets, {hardware} safety, Lightning performance, and developer tooling. Together, these initiatives reinforce Blockstream’s multi-faceted impression throughout shopper, enterprise, and developer initiatives.

• Liquid Bootcamps: Mexico City and São Paulo occasions introduced almost 100 builders collectively to compete for $6,000 in BTC rewards, with winners introduced at Brazil’s largest Bitcoin convention.
• Plan B Week in Lugano: Huge Blockstream presence showcased our workforce’s multi-faceted impression on the Bitcoin business. 
• Blockstream app v5.1.0 → v5.1.4: Focused on superior consumer flows, the newest string of updates launched thrilling new options to maximise consumer flexibility.
• Jade v1.0.37 → v1.0.38: New upgrades to Jade firmware, together with digicam enhancements and anti-rollback, strengthened machine safety and improved usability.
• Distributed Lab integration: Onboarded new developer expertise to bolster Blockstream’s management place in cryptography and speed up execution throughout shopper, enterprise, and institutional choices.
• Core Lightning 25.12 “Boltz’s Seamless Upgrade Experience”: BIP39 restoration phrases, xpay enhancements, and optimizations.  
• Explorer API 25.12: Introduced clear subscription pricing, complete documentation assets, and a modernized dashboard expertise.

Blockstream Enterprise — Taking the Stage

To cap off our worldwide, institutional 2025 push, Blockstream Enterprise made a number of closing appearances that earmark our presence within the enterprise highlight. 

Blockstream took the stage at BTCPrague’s Bitcoin Corporate Day for a panel discussion on “Enterprise Bitcoin Solutions: Treasury, Custody & Corporate Infrastructure.”

This panel centered on how Bitcoin transitions from a private asset to an institutional-grade treasury instrument, protecting technique, custody, regulation, belief, and the sensible realities enterprises face when adopting Bitcoin at scale. It’s a should hear for any enterprise or monetary entity that’s on the fence about absolutely embracing the Bitcoin commonplace.

Meanwhile, the non-public Bitcoin Capital Summit occasion, hosted in October by Blockstream, STOKR, and Fulgur Ventures, featured a panel dialogue led by our CEO Adam Back alongside Tether CEO Paolo Ardino, macro analyst Willy Woo, and Ego Death Capital’s Preston Pysh.

Each of those occasions introduced new relationships, strengthened current ones, and established larger belief within the quickest rising sect of Bitcoin adoption. Institutional urge for food for Bitcoin is hovering to all time highs, and we’re making ready to satisfy this demand.

Talent Expansion — Welcome Distributed Lab!

As a part of that preparation, one of many largest developments of Q4—maybe even all yr—was the November announcement of our settlement to combine the know-how and experience of Distributed Lab, a laser-sharp software program engineering firm recognized for its Bitcoin, cryptography, and sensible contract experience. 

The settlement consists of including Distributed Lab’s proprietary software program modules, developer tooling, and mental property to Blockstream’s platforms, together with the Blockstream app, Jade {hardware} pockets, Liquid Network companies, tokenization, Simplicity, and enterprise custody options.

This integration strengthens our place throughout shopper, enterprise, and institutional use circumstances by increasing its workforce. Their deep experience shall be vital to accelerating product execution and advancing Blockstream’s mission to usher Bitcoin into the world’s monetary future. 

Core Lightning — Optimizing on All Fronts

Core Lightning 25.12 delivered a significant step ahead in usability, velocity, and robustness, whereas doubling down to enhance primarily based on suggestions from our open supply group.

• New nodes now help an ordinary 12-phrase BIP-39 mnemonic as a substitute of a uncooked 32-byte hex seed to simplify backup and restoration whereas giving the choice to revive on-chain funds with any BIP-39/BIP-86-suitable pockets. 
• xpay acquired main enhancements primarily based on group suggestions and contribution.
• Every node runner will profit from main efficiency optimizations in database performance and latency reductions. Previously, sql customers reported latency spikes when calling the epicentre of core lightning; lightningd for 2M entries. The worst latency was 4.5 seconds, however we’ve diminished it by greater than 99% to only 0.028s. More broadly, we’ve made filtering of requests and database “behind-the-scenes” work smarter to extend efficiency.

The launch additionally provides enlargement options to the networkevents subsystem to floor peer-stage data like ping occasions and connection occasions. The workforce added enhancements to recurring-provide performance, and group contributors have labored exhausting to make sure our conformance to the BOLT spec for splice commitments.

Beyond behind-the-scenes enhancements, our workforce took middle stage to symbolize Blockstream in Berlin throughout October at Bitcoin++’s Lightning Edition. The Bitcoin++ convention collection is the frontier of Bitcoin, operating technical conferences for in-depth lectures, fingers-on workshops, and extra. This occasion introduced builders, designers, and researchers collectively to push the subsequent wave of Bitcoin scaling. 

Attended by a number of Core Lightning open-supply contributors and energy customers, Blockstream sponsored the Berlin convention and placed on a Happy Hour++ for attendees to speak candidly with out the stress of lacking the subsequent discuss.

• Principal Engineer Christian Decker presented an summary of Running Lightning at Scale. Starting with the primary ideas of Core Lightning’s genius modular structure via to the innovation of Greenlight to additional allow its skill to scale. Christian sat alongside fellow Lightning legends on a panel, moderated by Nifty to debate Implementing Lightning. 
• Lightning Product Manager Michael Blankenship gave a talk on fee rails, bringing his learnings from actual-world scaling on lightning and imaginative and prescient for the way forward for enabling a bitcoin world. 

Explorer API — Raising the Bar

More provisions. More stability. More predictability.

With its newest 25.12 release, Blockstream Explorer API is now outfitted for early-stage startup help all the best way as much as full enterprise lodging: 

• Fine-tuned subscription pricing with an all-new Enterprise tier.
• Faster block syncing because of QuickSync.
• Full help for Simplicity transaction visualization.
• Revamped dashboard that permits you to see every thing at a look: API keys, present utilization, documentation hyperlinks, well being standing, and fast actions.
• Dedicated Help Center assets with step-by-step guides for each frequent integration sample.

Beyond headline options, 25.12 consists of dozens of fixes that make the API extra predictable. Testnet habits is extra steady. Error messages are clearer. Staging and manufacturing responses at the moment are aligned.

These components all come collectively to offer an expertise that scales for groups at any stage of progress. Whether you are constructing a high-performance pockets that wants QuickSync, a buying and selling dashboard that queries actual-time blockchain information, or an change platform that calls for institutional-grade uptime, Explorer API has a tier designed on your use case.

Blockstream Research — Exploring Post-Quantum Solutions

The quantum computing dialog retains getting louder and louder. We’re seeing new know-how market themselves as “quantum-prepared” and extra hypothesis as to how quantum will have an effect on the world at massive.

What we care most about: how does Bitcoin fare in a publish-quantum world? Last quarter, Blockstream Research cryptography engineer Tim Ruffing printed The Post-Quantum Security of Bitcoin’s Taproot as a Commitment Scheme, analyzing how Taproot may very well be used to decide to publish-quantum public keys in a method that continues to be safe even when Schnorr and ECDSA have been damaged. Rather than proposing a brand new signature scheme, this work confirmed {that a} quantum attacker would haven’t any various technique to open a Taproot dedication.Building on that basis, our workforce has continued exploring concrete publish-quantum paths ahead, now specializing in signature schemes themselves. This quarter, Tim Ruffing collaborated with Cryptography Team Leader Jonas Nick and Cryptography Engineer Mikhail Kudinov to publish Hash-based Signature Schemes for Bitcoin, highlighting hash-primarily based signatures as a promising publish-quantum various to ECDSA and Schnorr. These schemes may very well be used instantly, or positioned inside a Taproot tree utilizing the dedication method outlined in Tim’s earlier work.They joined Marty Bent from TFTC to interrupt down this new analysis paper; be sure to check it out.

No one needs to get up at some point and be taught {that a} thief used leading edge computing innovation to reverse engineer their Bitcoin non-public key from their public key and sweep the steadiness. Whether it’s 5 years, 10, or a number of many years from now, relaxation assured figuring out that we’re method forward of the curve, working exhausting to gracefully usher Bitcoin right into a publish-quantum actuality. 

Besides quantum analysis, Simplicity improvement retains marching ahead:

• The analysis workforce launched a language server protocol (LSP) implementation for SimplicityHL, which gives autocomplete and good IDE integration. For builders, this implies they’ll develop packages with instant suggestions and steering for accessible performance.
• They created hal-simplicity, a command-line instrument which might create addresses and transactions in addition to “stepping via” the execution of Simplicity packages, making debugging, inspecting, and manipulating builders’ packages simpler than ever earlier than.

Consumer Growth — App and Jade Advancement

Our shopper merchandise made massive strides in consumer expertise, flexibility, and safety throughout the closing leg of 2025. 

The Blockstream app model 5.1.0 introduced Partially Signed Bitcoin Transaction (PSBT) exporting for watch-solely BTC wallets, quicker, cleaner, and simpler two-issue authentication for Android, in addition to a cleaned up UI to maximise the consumer expertise. 

In 5.1.4, Bitcoin funds develop into easy, dependable and very non-public because of Liquid ↔ Lightning swaps. Now, you’ve full management over the way you transact: obtain Liquid bitcoin from a Lightning fee, or pay a Lightning bill utilizing your Liquid steadiness. You can entry Lightning’s velocity and comfort with out having to handle channels or pay for inbound liquidity. All self-custodial, all open-supply, empowered by Bitcoin-native trustless atomic swaps supplied by Boltz, a protracted-time collaborator with Blockstream.

If you haven’t downloaded the Blockstream app but, what are you ready for?

Last however not least, Jade firmware variations 1.0.37 and 1.0.38 delivered main updates to enhance safety and value.

Headlining the 1.0.37 release was the Jade Plus digicam enhancement, which makes QR scanning 35% quicker. Air-gapping your bitcoin has by no means been simpler and extra accessible than with the up to date Jade Plus. 

1.0.38 introduced a significant safety replace: anti-rollback. This function prevents unhealthy actors from tricking customers into downgrading their machine as a way to exploit outdated firmware vulnerabilities. Oh, and 1.0.37’s 35% digicam scanning velocity enhance? This replace lower down scanning time by one other 40%.

Above all else, Blockstream values our customers’ safety and our machine’s simplicity. To overcome Bitcoin adoption limitations in UX, it’s vital we show that you just don’t must compromise on both to create a product that individuals not solely depend on, but additionally love to make use of. That’s the guiding gentle for all of our shopper merchandise.  

Global Community Engagement

We kicked off Q4 with two thrilling Liquid Developer Bootcamps in Mexico City, Mexico and São Paulo, Brazil. Focused on Liquid and Simplicity, almost 100 builders participated in complete, with members in Brazil competing for $6,000 in BTC rewards at our Simplicity hackathon. 

We have been thrilled to see all the enthusiasm and curiosity in Simplicity. Here are the three profitable hackathon tasks that have been introduced at Satsconf in São Paulo:

• Mare Nostrum: A proof of idea for locating Simplicity contracts by way of Nostr
• Simplicity Playground: An improve to the SimplicityHL internet IDE UI
• Partnerfy: An occasion voucher contract mechanism

The finish results of this hackathon? More Simplicity contracts out within the wild, established company presence as a significant sponsor for Brazil’s largest Bitcoin convention, and a showcase examine of the budding Bitcoin adoption happening all through Brazil.

As talked about, we have been enhancing our Simplicity documentation and tooling to enhance builders’ expertise and get extra individuals creating programmable sensible contracts. A number of methods to become involved within the Simplicity group:

• Join the Telegram channel.
• Follow Blockstream Research to remain up to the mark.
• Explore SimplicityHL and deploy your first contract!

Our workforce additionally turned out in pressure for Plan B Week in Lugano, Switzerland. With greater than 20 Blockstreamers in attendance, this occasion showcased Blockstream’s multi-faceted impression on the Bitcoin business.

• Adam’s schedule was stuffed with stage appearances, becoming a member of the recent conversations for establishments surrounding asset tokenization and corporate treasury evolution, in addition to taking part as a decide for the Cypher Tank pitch contest.
• Blockstream Engineer Valerio Vaccaro was busy all week lengthy. He ran a full Blockstream Jade DIY session, educating on the ins and outs of our self-custody tech via a fingers-on, how-to expertise. Additionally, he went on stage to discuss entropy generation using dice, rounding out the DIY dialogue. Finally, he joined Jade engineer Riccardo Casatta to present the “Master of the Keys” masterclass on {hardware} pockets multisig.
• Enterprise Product Manager Alessandro Saglimbeni gave a demo for Bitcoin administration utilizing Blockstream Jade, strolling viewers members via a setup and full management overview.
• Blockstream Developer Leonardo Comandini explained node configuration to make clear how customers can take full management over how they work together with the Bitcoin community, and discussed Liquid and digital property on Bitcoin alongside different Bitcoin builders.
• Core Lightning Contributor and Principal Greenlight Engineer Christian Decker sat on a panel coined “Inside Lightning Implementations” alongside builders at Lightning Labs, Breez, and Synonym.
• Adam completed off the week with a Jade signing session on the Blockstream sales space, taking photographs, speaking Bitcoin, and attending to know our group on a extra private stage.

Before the massive week, we supported Lugano’s native meetup “Satoshi Spritz” occasion—an evening full of nice dialog, drinks, and prizes for the group.

Media & Event Highlights

Our workforce stored busy within the media highlight all through Q4:

• Director of Blockstream Research Andrew Poelstra went on Bitcoin News to speak Simplicity, the Bitcoin market, mining, and extra.
• While in Lugano for Plan B Week, Adam Back did an interview with BeInCrypto on Bitcoin’s previous and venture ahead into the long run.
• At the Bitfinex Derivatives Gamma Summit, Adam Back’s hearth chat with Thalex CEO Hendrik Ghys coated early threat notion, the lengthy-time period holder mindset, and the way Bitcoin’s volatility has shifted over time.
• Adam Back sat down with Simply Bitcoin to speak about market cycles, layer-2 scaling, and the subsequent wave of Bitcoin adoption.
• Adam Back interviewed with Yahoo! Finance TV’s show “Catalysts” to share his ideas on Bitcoin and its place within the present macro surroundings.
• Adam Back joined The Bitcoin Economy to debate how Bitcoin’s cypherpunk imaginative and prescient survives within the face of Wall Street regulation.
• At Bitcoin Amsterdam, Adam Back sat down within the convention corridor to interrupt down Bitcoin’s market construction, ETF impression, layer-2 innovation, why 2026 might defy all earlier cycles, and extra.

Looking Ahead: Q1 Priorities

Q4 of 2025 marked the start of an thrilling new chapter for Blockstream. With transformative workforce enlargement, new function units, and optimized infrastructure efficiency, 2026 shall be a yr characterised by accelerated improvement and breaking new floor.

Here’s what we’re centered on for Q1 of 2026:

• Consumer: New Jade product releases. We dropped one easter egg already—keep tuned for the reveal!
• Enterprise: Expand Explorer API into new audiences, crystallize our Liquid product providing, and launch custody answer merchandise.
• Research: Refresh Simplicity documentation to welcome new audiences.
• Community: Get extra Jades within the fingers of educators to push for larger self-custody adoption.

We’d additionally wish to thank our gifted workforce of builders and our passionate group for all of the help this yr. No matter what lies in retailer for Bitcoin subsequent yr, 2026 is ready to be Blockstream’s most bullish yr but. 

For extra data, go to blockstream.com, attain out to press@blockstream.com, or DM @Blockstream on 𝕏.