Bitcoin Core’s privacy fix reaches v32 code while the v31 patch remains open

Bitcoin Core has merged a privacy fix into its 32.x source branch addressing behavior that could correlate private-broadcast connections with ordinary node connections. The backport for 31.x remains open as of Oct. 8, leaving users who enable the feature on the latest stable release, 31.1, awaiting the repair. Private broadcast is disabled by default.

The Oct. 1 backport includes the original change, which reached the main development branch on Sept. 25. The separate proposal to bring the fix to 31.x received an approval from reviewer vasild on Oct. 6 and carries a 31.2 milestone. That assignment does not establish a release date.

The official download page still lists 31.1 as the latest version. The 32.0 download directory contains test candidates rather than final-release files, including rc3 binaries dated Oct. 6.

The opt-in path at risk

Users enable the privatebroadcast option for submissions through sendrawtransaction, the command for sending a raw transaction to the network. That path uses dedicated, short-lived connections to Tor or I2P peers, or to IPv4 and IPv6 peers through Tor. The connection-linking concern applies to this private-broadcast activity, rather than every node running the default configuration.