FIBRE Returns With a Public Bitcoin Block-Relay Network
Localhost Research revived FIBRE as a public low-latency Bitcoin block-relay network after years of stasis. The project returned specialized infrastructure intended to reduce propagation delays and the mining advantages created by stale-block races.
In February 2026, Localhost Research revived the Fast Internet Bitcoin Relay Engine, better known as FIBRE, and began operating a public FIBRE network. The system had a long history in Bitcoin mining infrastructure but had been largely dormant for years before the new effort brought it back into active public use.
FIBRE is designed to relay newly mined Bitcoin blocks with extremely low latency. It combines UDP transport, forward error correction, and Bitcoin’s compact-block technology so nodes can reconstruct and forward blocks even when some network packets are lost. The objective is to reduce the delay between a block being mined in one part of the world and being received by miners elsewhere.
Propagation speed matters because miners who receive a new block late may continue working on an obsolete chain tip, increasing the risk of stale blocks. Large miners with superior private networking can gain an advantage in these races. By making fast block relay more broadly available, FIBRE is intended to reduce that asymmetry and support a more geographically distributed mining network.
The February revival was historically meaningful because it restored infrastructure that had helped shape Bitcoin’s earlier block-relay architecture rather than introducing another incremental node release. The project returned with modern Bitcoin Core integration and a public network that industry participants could use or complement with their own FIBRE deployments.