The Rocket Pool community celebrates the 2025 holidays, with node operators and community members sharing festive greetings and looking ahead to the upcoming Saturn 1 upgrade. Participants receive a POAP.

Rocket Pool has released Smart Node v1.18.0, featuring key client updates and several Smart Node improvements, including Saturn branch integration and enhanced Docker functionality. This is a low-priority update for Mainnet users but mandatory for Hoodi testnet ahead of its October 28th fork. Node Operators who updated received a POAP.

Smart Node v1.17.0 is now live, bringing major client updates—most of which raise the default block gas limit to 45M—and a new pruning feature that allows node operators to reduce storage needs by enabling partial history expiry. This is a recommended update for all Node Operators. Full details and upgrade instructions: https://github.com/rocket-pool/smartnode/releases/tag/v1.17.0.

Rocket Pool Smart Node v1.16.0 is out now, featuring key client updates, new features, and a critical change to rewards submissions. oDAO members must upgrade before the next submission to prevent consensus issues, and it's a recommended update for all Node Operators. Full release notes and upgrade instructions here: https://github.com/rocket-pool/smartnode/releases/tag/v1.16.0. Node operators that upgrade within 48 hours received a POAP.

Rocket Pool has released Smart Node v1.15.7, a major update featuring critical client upgrades, oDAO health check fixes, and a major consolidation of legacy repositories into the main smartnode repo for easier future development. Node operators who upgrade are eligible to claim a commemorative POAP. Release details and update instructions are available here: https://github.com/rocket-pool/smartnode/releases/tag/v1.15.7.

Ken hosted a special guest from Primex to chat about a new DeFi opportunity for rETH liquid stakers. Join the Rocket Pool community calls on Discord at discord.gg/rocketpool

The Rocket Pool Smartnode v1.14.0 release includes mandatory client updates for Nethermind, Prysm, Besu, and Reth, alongside Smart Node changes such as removing the 16 ETH minipool option, enhancing deposit prompts, and optimizing RPC calls for oDAO nodes. Minor adjustments were also made to accommodate Saturn-0 and update messages. Shortly after, version 1.14.1 was released to address a breaking change in Prysm and update Lodestar, which is only necessary for Prysm users. Node operators that updated within 72 hours received a POAP.

NodeSet's successful launch led to the creation of over 500 additional Rocket Pool minipools. With the increase in maximum validators per node, node operators eagerly competed for these new minipools, resulting in hundreds of failed transactions on Ethereum. NodeSet operators who experienced a failed transaction were awarded a POAP.

The contributors to the Rocket Pool #support channel work in the shadows, helping to keep the validators from Rocket Pool node operators functional while protecting us all from scammers. In October, 2024 the community shared stories of why they are thankful for #support.