The first release candidate for Bitcoin Core 32.0 has been available since September 14, 2026. For you as the operator of your own node that means two things: the feature set of the coming major version is settled, and when it ships the 29 series drops out of the project's maintenance window. Anyone still running 29.x today will get no more security fixes after the planned date of October 10. The check takes two minutes; the update costs half an hour depending on your setup.