If Knots PR #429 ships, mined XBT unlocks one year at a time, forever
Knots pull request #429 is usually described as "lock new XBT until September 2027." That's only half of it. The PR has two layers, and the second one never switches off: if it ships as written, every newly mined XBT reward waits about a year before Knots nodes will relay a transaction spending it.
Layer 1: the consensus lock (ends Sept 1, 2027)
This is the part most coverage talks about. Mining rewards from block 973,440 onward can't be spent in a valid block until the network's median time passes Sept 1, 2027. After that, they go back to bitcoin's normal rule: spendable 100 blocks after they're mined.
Consensus means every upgraded node rejects a block that breaks the rule. It ends on one date for everyone, so like today's lock, it's a cliff. Our PR #429 explainer covers this layer and the roughly 156,000 XBT it would hold.
Layer 2: the relay hold (one year per reward, no end date)
The second layer is policy, not consensus. Knots nodes running the PR won't accept a transaction into their mempool, or relay it, if it spends a mining reward from block 973,440 onward that's less than one year old. The Knots wallet treats those coins the same way. There's no expiry date in the code: it applies to every reward mined from the start of the window, forever, unless a later release changes it.
Policy doesn't make a block invalid. A block that includes such a spend is still accepted once the consensus lock is over. The spend just can't travel through Knots mempools to reach a miner.
When a reward actually unlocks
| Mined | Valid in a block (consensus) | Relayed by Knots nodes (policy) |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 | Sept 1, 2027 | Oct 2027 |
| Mar 2027 | Sept 1, 2027 | Mar 2028 |
| Oct 2027 | 100 blocks later | Oct 2028 |
| Any later date | 100 blocks later | One year later |
So the September 2027 date matters less than it looks. For most coins, the date that counts is their own one-year mark.
Who the September date helps
The gap between the two layers is a window where a spend is valid but won't be relayed. The only way through it is for a miner to put the transaction straight into a block it builds itself. In practice that means pools, and solo miners running their own templates, spending their own rewards or making payouts in their own blocks. A miner on a pool that doesn't do this, or anyone who bought coins that came from a recent reward, waits for the one-year mark.
How much this bites depends on how many nodes and miners run the policy. Right now about 87% of reachable XBT nodes enforce the current lock, almost all of them Knots. That share could change before or after any release.
How big is the new supply?
A question raised in the PR's review thread puts it in scale: about 47,000 XBT has been mined since the fork, against about 20.07 million inherited from bitcoin's history. That's roughly 0.2% of supply. The lock decides when that small, growing slice can trade, not whether the rest of the supply can move.
Where it stands
- Open, not merged. PR #429 is still under review on GitHub, with both support and objections from reviewers.
- No release yet. A test build exists. No official Knots release includes it.
- Deadline: block 979,920. The current lock releases about 20,000 XBT at once at that block, expected around Nov 1. If PR #429 isn't running on most of the network before then, that release happens first. Why it's a cliff
- Could still change. Related proposals would release the lock in stages instead of all at once. Details, including the one-year rule, may change before anything ships.
Lock countdown and trackerMiners: payout questions for your pool
Source: Bitcoin Knots pull request #429, its code and review thread on GitHub, read Oct 16, 2026. Unlock dates are approximate because they follow median block time. Reporting only, not financial advice.
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