Hey everyone!
Here’s the latest roadmap update, covering November 2025 through April 2026. The Saturn 1 launch consumed the last cycle, so this one folds in the update we skipped along the way.
Devconnect
In November, the team attended Devconnect in Buenos Aires, where we connected with the community and ecosystem partners. At the ETHStaker Gathering, we joined RockSolid and Ken on a panel about LSTs and Vaults, followed by our talk on Keeping Ethereum Decentralised.
Saturn 1
Saturn 1 is the largest release Rocket Pool has shipped since launch. It touches almost every part of the protocol — from node operator bonds and capital efficiency, through to withdrawal liquidity and how protocol commission is governed. The release lifts the capacity ceiling that has constrained our growth, opens the door to faster exits for users, and gives governance the tools to respond to changing market conditions. For the full breakdown of what’s in the release, see All About Saturn One.
At the end of 2025, the Saturn 1 audit process was in full swing, with three independent partners — Sigma Prime, Cantina, and Bailsec — each conducting a comprehensive code review and threat analysis. Each partner produced a report of any vulnerabilities found; the core team rectified the issues, and the code was re-evaluated. The full audit reports are available on our security page.
Quality assurance went beyond the audits. Because Saturn touches so many processes, we broke testing up across a series of public/open devnets so we could surface issues early and keep development moving. Community devnet testers exercised the code under real-world conditions, while the core team ran an internal suite covering edge cases. The result is a release that has been pressure-tested by both professional auditors and the wider community before reaching mainnet.
Saturn 1 launched on 18 February 2026. As of 7 May 2026:
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60,160 ETH (US$139,511,040) staked through megapools
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1,880 megapool validators deposited and awaiting activation in the Ethereum entry queue
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1,896 validators in the megapool entry queue, providing capacity for 53,088 ETH of incoming rETH mints
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18,635 ETH used to mint rETH
Dissolve timeout hotfix
Within hours of the Saturn 1 launch, we identified that the dissolve timeout window — the period a validator has to progress from prestake before its bond can be dissolved — was too short given the state of the network. The Ethereum validator activation queue was running at around 70 days at the time, well beyond the configured window. Left unchanged, this risked legitimate validators being dissolved through no fault of their node operator, simply because they were waiting their turn to activate.
The core team assessed the impact, scoped the fix, and consulted the community on the approach. The remedy was a single parameter change, taken through an oDAO vote and applied well before any validator was affected. No minipools were impacted, and no action was required from node operators.
Websites and APIs
Saturn 1 was the biggest influence on our websites and services this period, with each one updated to support the new features and services it introduced. On top of that, each site and service had its own specific improvements, summarised below.
User-facing websites
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rocketpool.net — RPL fee switch calculator, bi-weekly and news updates, reward calculator updates, plus the usual style/UX polish, dependency updates, and bug fixes.
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stake.rocketpool.net / node.rocketpool.net — Saturn 1 alignment, dependency updates, and ongoing style/UX improvements.
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docs.rocketpool.net — migrated to rspress v2, with the docs now translated into 10 languages. Includes new font and style updates, plus Saturn 1 content.
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delegates.rocketpool.net — dependency and tooling updates, plus style/UX fixes.
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dao.rocketpool.net — dependency updates and backup improvements.
APIs and backend services
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api.rocketpool.net — Saturn 1 updates, withdrawal proofs, rate-limiting changes, migration from ethers-rs to alloy, and Rust version updates.
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interstage — our Rust-based proxy. Dependency and Rust version updates.
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Sentinel — a new RocketWatch-based spam detection service deployed during the period, including infrastructure setup, testing, and coordination with maintainers and admins.
New tools and products
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rocketpool-skills — AI agent skill bundles for interacting with Rocket Pool smart contracts via
cast(Foundry) or Ethereum MCP tools. -
Kurtosis-based private testnets — used for Saturn 1 deployment rehearsals and integration testing.
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Dashboard (coming soon) — a new Rust-based, all-in-one dashboard for Rocket Pool users. Substantial testing, rewrites, bug fixes, and UI/UX work over the period.
Infrastructure
Weekly maintenance across the core Rocket Pool infrastructure: oDAO, RPC endpoints, proxies, load balancers, web servers, log monitoring, and status/uptime monitoring.
Smart Node
Smart Node work across the period broadly fell into three phases.
Fusaka preparation. A run of client updates and tuning to keep nodes healthy through Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade — including new gas-price defaults, lower batch sizes to avoid post-Fusaka out-of-gas errors, and a switch to Etherscan’s v2 gas oracle. We also began using the keymanager API in preparation for per-validator fee recipients on Saturn.
Saturn 1 launch and stabilisation. Saturn 1 introduced megapools alongside existing minipools. Supporting all of this required substantial reworking of the Smart Node across deposit flows, queue management, balance submission, and reward handling. The launch release added new megapool commands including a new claims command that consolidates megapool, minipool, fee distributor, and periodic ETH/RPL reward claims into a single flow.
Additionally:
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Automatic latest-delegate updates for minipools, per RPIP-77
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Megapool multicalls for faster state loading
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Megapool ETH eligibility aligned with minipools for RPL rewards
Post-Saturn improvements.
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Native Commit-Boost support
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New P2P-port closed alerts and the option to show alerts after every command
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Memory and bandwidth optimisations between the node and its clients
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An experimental local API server (not exposed by default)
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A new
rocketpool updatecommand, contributed by Patches -
Shell completion
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Experimental IPv6 support — currently aimed at advanced users and those behind CGNAT — along with QUIC transport for Lodestar
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Comprehensive static analysis and linter overhaul to catch bugs, dead code, and improve style consistency — also contributed by Patches.
Saturn 2
Following on from the roadmap discussions, the core team kicked off Saturn 2 scoping discussions. The community direction was clear: rETH demand should be the focus, which has shifted Saturn 2’s scope away from its original direction.
The current indicative scope is:
| RPIP | Feature | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| RPIP-44 | Integrating Execution Layer Triggerable Exits | Lets the node operator withdrawal address — and the protocol, where there is significant debt or penalties — exit validators from a megapool. |
| RPIP-46 | Universal Adjustable Revenue Split | Reduces RPL inflation by discontinuing node operator rewards. |
| RPIP-71 | rETH Withdrawal Liquidity via EIP-7002 | Makes withdrawals more reliable and helps stabilise the rETH peg. |
| RPIP-73 | rETH Protection From Underperforming Nodes | Identifies and exits underperforming validators to protect rETH yield. |
| RPIP-79 | Faster Withdrawal Credentials Check | Speeds up validator queue processing by verifying withdrawal credentials earlier. |
| TBD | pDAO settings guardrails | Reviews appropriate parameter ranges to protect governance settings. |
| TBD | On-chain pDAO voting (Snapshot migration) | Migrates pDAO voting from Snapshot to an on-chain system. Under further discussion. |
Our current focus is defining the scope and RPIPs, assessing feasibility, and exploring designs. Once the shape is settled, we’ll move into governance and implementation. We won’t have a firm timeline for Saturn 2 until the scoping work is further along — we’ll share dates as soon as we have a clearer picture.
Please let me know if you have questions.