This is an important point release with critical fixes, especially for new nodes created with v25.12.
Addressing signing operations, plugin stability, and mnemonic handling.
Core Lightning v25.12 "Boltz's Seamless Upgrade Experience" is here! 🎉
New nodes open with BIP-39 12-word recovery phrases. Existing nodes maintain full backward compatibility.
Major performance gains for large nodes and xpay improvements from user feedback. 📊⚡
This release delivers massive performance wins: Postgres reads 30% faster, database latency down 12%, worst-case reduced from 353s to 56.9s.
xpay handles Phoenix payments reliably. New networkevents subsystem tracks peer ping times in real-time.
https://blog.blockstream.com/core-lightning-25-12-boltzs-seamless-upgrade-experience/
Since v25.09, Core Lightning has merged 520 commits from 24 authors in 92 days. A warm welcome to 3 first-time contributors helping CLN continue evolving with more stability, usability and developer power. Onward. ⚡
Key fixes:
✅ Correct signing for non-taproot addresses (new nodes)
✅ Mnemonic hsm_secret file handling
✅ Plugin stability (pay, askrene)
✅ Improved gossipd and lightningd crash prevention
Upgrade:
https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/releases/tag/v25.12.1