Summary:
In this episode of the Ready for Merge show, Christine D. Kim reviews the most significant code changes in Bitcoin and Ethereum protocol development for the year 2025. She highlights Ethereum's major upgrades, Pectra and Fusaka, which led to substantial Layer-1 and Layer-2 scaling improvements. On the Bitcoin side, the uncapping of the data carrier size sparked controversy within the community. The episode concludes with reflections on the future of both protocols and the challenges they face in 2026.
Timestamps:
06:48 The Most Influential Ethereum Code Merges of 2025
25:45 The Most Influential Bitcoin Code Merges of 2025
Links:
- Nethermind blog post on block gas limit testing improvements in 2025 (https://www.nethermind.io/blog/getting-ethereum-ready-for-gigagas)
- R4M episode on the controversy of Bitcoin Core v30 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFg-hU9KXxA)
- R4M episode on the C-header API (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNLh-flmUdg)
- R4M episode on the cluster mempool PR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8sdOW4Xlk)
- BTC Before Light newsletter post on the nTime overflow problem (https://christinedkim.substack.com/p/issue-21)
