Protocol Development - Roadmap Update (Aug, Sept, Oct)

Hey everyone!

Here is a quarterly roadmap update for Aug, Sept, and Oct 2025.

Priority Discussion

We facilitated a priority discussion with the community to align on product direction and development priorities. Subsequently, the roadmap prioritisation placed rETH redemptions and protections next in the development queue, ahead of remaining Saturn 2 features.

Protocol DAO Guardian Disabled

Since launch, our goal has been to disable the protocol DAO guardian and transfer complete control to the Protocol DAO. This required two prerequisites: a functioning on-chain voting system and an established security council. The Houston upgrade delivered both components. While the core team initially comprises the security council, we intend to include community members over time. With these elements operational, we permanently disabled the protocol DAO guardian, completing the transition to full decentralised governance.

Saturn 1

Devnet-4

The team launched Devnet-4, which includes all Saturn 1 features including the v11 reward tree that delivers voter share to RPL-staking node operators. However, congestion on the Hoodi Ethereum testnet has significantly impacted testing. We’re now exploring alternative solutions, including the Ephemeral testnet and deploying our own isolated devnet environment.

Audits

We engaged three independent security audit firms - Sigma Prime, Spearbit/Cantina, and Bailsec — to conduct comprehensive reviews of the Saturn 1 codebase. The core team has been actively supporting the audit process.

  • Sigma Prime: Audit completed
  • Spearbit/Cantina: Report delivered, currently completing fix verification checks
  • Bailsec: Interim report received; core team addressing identified issues

The audit process has identified several significant findings requiring code updates and additional testing. While this extends our timeline, these discoveries substantially strengthen protocol security and robustness.

Devnet-5

Following the completion of Bailsec’s audit and implementation of all fixes, we will deploy Devnet-5 for final testing. It is highly likely this will either be deployed on Ephemeral or hopefully our own isolated devnet environment.

Timeline

The target timeline remains: 19 January 2026

Websites and APIs

Brand update

With @sleety’s help we tweaked the Rocket Pool brand to keep it fresh and modern - and updated across all platforms.

RockSolid integration

While in stealth, the core team integrated the RockSolid vault into the main website and staking flow. We then supported RockSolid on launch, tweaking as we move into maintenance.

CowSwap integration

We were excited to launch the CowSwap integration, providing rETH stakers with flexibility, the best price, and MEV-protection.

Voting improvements

We made small improvements to the delegate voting site.

New node site

We are working on a new node site that will be deployed with Saturn.

Custom devnet

To support Saturn 1 testing we are deploying custom devnet infrastructure.

Misc

As always lots of dependency updates, performance tweaks, UX & UI improvements across all sites & APIs

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

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I would love to hear any updates on the work related to the next release. You previously said that Saturn 1 delay should not affect Saturn 2 timeline so I assume some preparation work maybe already under way. And if there’s anything a community can help with at the moment, it can be a good chance to remind us.

Yes this is great timing. I will be reaching out to the community this week about next steps.

The Roadmap direction discussion provided clear direction, and I plan to communicate these findings.

There’s strong community interest in improving rETH withdrawal liquidity—something we’re also hearing consistently in business development conversations. We’ll engage with the community to collaboratively refine RPIP-71 and make it ready for implementation. While Kane is currently focused on audit bug fixes, I’m planning to allocate some of his time this week and next to work through the technical solution design.

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