Monthly Development Update – October 2026

October was a month of preparation for Devcon 8. Bee 2.8.3 shipped with faster storage incentive sampling and quicker synchronization. Research moved forward on the redistribution game, smart neighborhoods and pubsub, and the JS libraries gained new pubsub support. Here's the full rundown.

Bee Track

Bee 2.8.3 (15 Oct): security, protocol and performance improvements
Storage incentives sampling is significantly faster
Sync settles faster after storage radius changes
New tools for measuring sync and radius behavior
Next: security audits, sync, and a leaner codebase with fewer dependencies

Research Track

The redistribution game (SWIP-49/50) remained the central focus, with implementation and detail discussions throughout October. A shortcoming identified in SWIP-50, its samples proving too weak, gave rise to the ‘megatree’ approach, with the related question of randomness sources taken up subsequently.
SWIP-80/81 complement this with a research baseline (‘phase 0’) proposal grounded in comparative analysis to explore ways to strengthen timeboxing for research tasks.
Smart neighborhoods (SWIP-39) went through detailed discussion, in particular the distribution of nodes across neighborhoods, together with related proposals on durability and redundancy (SWIP-68) and a review of the system constants (SWIP-82).
Pubsub (SWIP-60, 61 and 87) progressed with the multi-publisher case coming into focus.
The direct browser-to-browser connection over WebRTC moved from experiment and concepts to demo stage, with the results currently being compiled.
Homecoming was deliberated passionately from both the technical and the economic side, and two positions were settled: postage batches belong on Ethereum without compromise; the route leads via the Ethereum Economic Zone first, should it materialize, with a rollup of Swarm’s own as a potential later step.
A smoother upgrade path now has a defined way forward, modeled on how Ethereum itself handles upgrades.
On pricing, SWIP-86 proposed dampening the price oracle signal to reduce the swings caused by radius decreases but was abandoned; instead the price is being watched following the change to radius 10, while tokenomics discussions on price finding and node incentives continue.
The specification is being brought up to date by means of an AI-aided comparison of the spec against the Bee code, with the goal of a specification edition that serves humans and AI alike, supported by a compendium that human review work can be based on.
Trust-graph-based discovery and curation (SWIP-85) was discussed in the context of Subcult, whose tipping feature also raised the idea of selling top-up batches for credit card payment; a concept discussion of this is slated for after Devcon.
ACT is being reviewed and future-proofed using AI. Quantum resistance, raised in that context, is now being treated as a general cryptography topic, alongside the tentative idea of a ‘gracious encryption’ of references.
Conceptual correctness continues to be probed throughout: debating the design of GSOCs, uneven network usage patterns were inspected for the stochastic fluke causing them, and an integration testing strategy is being drawn up.
Swarm Studio (SWIP-67) slowed down as effort was redirected towards Devcon.
On the productivity front, a joint ticket board with the Bee team was put in place, and SWIP-72 on AI responsibility lays down principles for working with AI. The future of specifying and reviewing, and with it Swarm’s role as an AI company, was explored with urgency.

JS Track

Apps

Bee-JS

We did some cleanup work on the library by merging a bunch of dependency updates and prepared for the Bee release by following the changes. As a new feature we introduced two new Pubsub-related methods.

Core SDK

To support the new pubsub feature we expanded the library with quite some reusable components.

Swarm Gateway

We added ENS resolution to the gateway, because the ENSv2 names couldn’t resolve properly via bzz.limo and bzz.link.

DevRel

Content

Events

Swarm Community Call – 29 October

The October Swarm Community Call covered the release of Bee 2.8.3, with improvements to storage incentive sampling and network synchronization. Gregor Žavcer from Datafund introduced their work on verifiable provenance for AI agent memory, demonstrating how Swarm can help detect tampering with recorded information by using plur.ai. Meinhard Benn presented a prototype of mobile livestreaming through Freedom Browser, showing how video can be published directly to Swarm without relying on conventional streaming servers or gateways.

The call also previewed Swarm’s extensive presence at Devcon 8 – more on that below!

You are welcome to watch the full event recording here.

Upcoming events

Swarm Community Call – 26 November

The next Swarm Community Call will take place on Thursday, 26 November, as usual on the last Thursday of the month, at 17:00 CET – broadcast on the Swarm Foundation’s X, YouTube and the Swarm network itself.

Swarm Foundation Team and friends at Devcon 8, Mumbai – 3–6 November

Find us at Devcon 8!

3–6 November | Mumbai

Swarm will be all over Devcon this year. Here's where to find us:

Talks: Viktor Tron on Blob or Chunk — Which One Is Cypherpunk?, Henning Diedrich on Why Every Supply Chain Blockchain Died, Migle Rakitaite on Decentralized Media, Levente (Levilk) Kiss on decentralized video streaming, Kelly Joo on data custody and privacy, and Peter Foldiak on The Loop Economy: A Universal Combinatorial Marketplace Without a Platform. Plus, more talks from members of the wider Swarm community.
Impact Hub | 3–6 November: Find the Swarm Foundation team here every day. Come for technical advice, demos, integration discussions, or simply to meet the people building Swarm.
Community Hubs: We're participating in four hubs across the conference:
- Devcon India Hub | 3 November: Introduction to Swarm and building on decentralized infrastructure.
- Agentic Hub | 3 & 5 November: AI agent memory, verifiable evidence, deterministic AI, and reputation systems.
- Privacy Hub | 4 November: Privacy, data custody, and decentralized infrastructure.
- Resilient Networking Hub | 5 November: A full day dedicated to decentralized media, from publishing and livestreaming to music distribution.
Manifesto Roulette | 3–6 November, Gaming Zone: An interactive art × tech installation where ideologies collide. Spin the wheel, read a manifesto, leave a (counter)argument, and take it with you. The texts and reactions live on Swarm.
Livecoding | Music Stage: The collective music experiment returns after its debut at Berlin Blockchain Week. Musicians will create and perform live using a shared soundbank hosted on Swarm, with contributions from the community.
Swarm News | Throughout Devcon: Interviews, conversations, and selected highlights from Mumbai for everyone following remotely. Produced at Devcon, streamed over Swarm.

Follow the action on socials and at streamoverswarm.eth.limo.

People & Culture team

If you are interested in joining the team and believe you have outstanding skills, visit our careers page https://www.ethswarm.org/jobs or simply drop us a message at talent@ethswarm.org!