Part 6/14:
Gloria delves into the technical challenges of protocol upgrades, describing how Bitcoin's software often supports multiple versions concurrently through "branches." She explains the incremental approach of regular, semi-annual releases, with security patches backported to older versions to ensure ongoing safety.
A significant point is the ongoing work on modularizing the protocol—decoupling consensus rules from the user interface or wallet functions. Such flexibility would allow users to adopt improvements without risking instability.
Her advice? “Never run unmaintained software. It contains known bugs and security vulnerabilities.” She stresses the importance of keeping node software up to date, warning about vulnerabilities in outdated versions.