Monero FCMP++ Hard Fork Status: Where It Stands in November 2026

Full-Chain Membership Proofs (FCMP++) will be the biggest change to Monero’s privacy model since RingCT, and the question we get most often is when it goes live. As of 6 November 2026 the honest answer is that no hard fork date has been set. The project has, however, moved a long way in the past year: three generations of public stress testing, a formal code audit, and the first consensus-critical code merged into the reference node. This report covers where things stand, what is still open, and what holders should (and shouldn’t) do.

The short answer: no date yet

The official roadmap on getmonero.org still lists “Full-Chain Membership Proofs” with no date or target version, according to an early-October review by CryptoTicker. An August 2026 report also noted that a 10 May 2026 post on the official blog said custom transaction unlock times would be deprecated “with the FCMP++ fork”, while stating that no fork date had been set.

Contributors have shared two timing hints. Read both carefully, because neither is a commitment:

• A planning document. Core contributor jeffro256 keeps a public work-breakdown plan for the FCMP++/Carrot upgrade on GitHub. Its planner currently states that the upgrade “will activate in week 8 of 2027”, which would mean late February 2027. The author labels it a non-binding working draft with no guarantee of accuracy or timing.
• A personal hope. At the Monero Research Lab meeting on 28 October 2026, developer jberman reportedly said the FCMP++ integration pull requests were ready, that audit quotes were expected soon, and that he personally hoped the code would be ready “around Q1”. That summary comes from a community digest compiled by an AI agent from meeting logs, which flags that it may contain mistakes. Treat it as an indication, not a schedule.

Key point: “Code ready” is not the same as “fork activated.” Once the code is done, Monero still needs final audits, a public testnet phase, release builds, and enough lead time for exchanges, wallets and node operators to upgrade. Historically, hard fork heights have been announced weeks to months ahead.

Timeline: FCMP++ milestones so far

How we got here

Alpha stressnet (October 2025 onward)

The public test phase started on 3 October 2025, according to the show notes of the Monero Monthly podcast episode released on 9 October 2025. The aim of a “stressnet” is different from a normal testnet. Volunteers deliberately flood it with transactions to find out how FCMP++ behaves under heavy load: how long proofs take to verify, whether nodes can sync, and what happens to fees and block sizes.

The alpha phase did its job by surfacing problems. jberman’s Community Crowdfunding System (CCS) proposal page says the alpha stressnet reached release version 1.4. It lists open issues that included sync failures, slow proof verification during sync, transaction relay v2, and fee and scaling logic. The same page lays out the path to mainnet as alpha stressnet → beta stressnet → code review and audits → testnet → mainnet. It doesn’t put a date on any step.

Audits (spring 2026)

On 1 May 2026 the official Monero account announced that audits of the FCMP++ integration into the Monero codebase had begun. The CoinMarketCal event listing republished by TradingView says security firm Trail of Bits was engaged to audit the “FCMP++ 1a/1b” integration between 11 and 22 May 2026.

An earlier CCS audit proposal from jberman, dated 6 April 2026, split the review into three phases: the FCMP++ cryptography, the curve-tree building, and consensus integration. That structure matters because FCMP++ isn’t one feature. It’s a stack of new cryptography (the membership proofs), a new data structure (a Merkle-style “curve tree” over every output on the chain), and new consensus rules that every node must enforce identically.

Beta stressnet (May 2026)

The second, more complete test phase, the beta stressnet, launched on 6 May 2026 at block 2,997,100, CoinTurk reported the following day. It tests FCMP++ together with Carrot, the new address and key scheme that ships alongside it.

Stressnet v3.0 (September–October 2026)

On 25 September 2026 developers released v0.19.0.0-beta.3.0, described as the FCMP++ and Carrot beta stressnet v3.0. Per the release notes as reported by CryptoTicker and CriptoNoticias, it adds:

1. Hot/cold wallet support, including hardware wallet workflows.
2. Transaction Relay v2 improvements.
3. RandomX v2 compatibility.
4. Fixes found in the previous version, plus recent code from Monero’s main branch.

The release is not compatible with earlier beta builds. Participants had to resync from scratch rather than reuse their old database or wallet cache. The stressnet then forked at block 3,102,800 on 5 October 2026. CriptoNoticias noted that developers expect only a few dozen participants at most, so the test network’s anonymity set is tiny. Nobody should treat stressnet transactions as private.

Note: The stressnet’s version numbers (v0.19.x) give a hint about naming. The FCMP++ upgrade is being developed on a 0.19 branch, while mainnet users are still on 0.18.5.x “Fluorine Fermi” releases.

What changed in the last two weeks

The early-November community digest, compiled from public meeting logs and GitHub activity, reports several concrete steps:

• Tree-building merged. jberman’s pull request #11425, which integrates curve-tree building into the node’s database, has been merged into monerod. According to the digest, it grows the tree as blocks are added and trims it when blocks are removed. It also includes a migration that builds the tree up to the current chain tip. This is a prerequisite for verifying FCMP++ transactions and blocks.
• Still open. Consensus verification (#11440) and proof-verification tooling (#11407) are still under review.
• Next items. Follow-ups to the integration pull requests, Carrot review items, and wiring in a relative-lock implementation by researcher tevador. Multisig support is waiting on final Carrot items.
• Cuprate keeps pace. The alternative Rust node, Cuprate, finished part one of its own FCMP tree implementation. Early tests against monerod reportedly looked good. A CCS proposal to fund Cuprate’s FCMP++ support was fully funded at 85 XMR.

Taken together, this is the slow, unglamorous phase of moving reviewed code from a test branch into the main codebase one piece at a time.

Why FCMP++ matters

Today every Monero transaction hides the real input among 15 decoys, a ring size of 16 that has been in place since the August 2022 network upgrade. Ring signatures work, but they leak statistical information. Decoy selection can be analysed, and repeated patterns or poisoned outputs can narrow down the true spend over time.

FCMP++ removes the ring entirely. Each transaction proves that it spends some output from the whole set of eligible outputs on the chain. Reports in 2026 put that set at more than 150 million outputs, compared with 16 today. In practice:

For a deeper technical walkthrough of ring signatures, decoys and FCMP++, see our Technology section.

What still has to happen before mainnet

Based on the published plan and the CCS status pages, the remaining steps include:

1. Merge the remaining integration PRs, especially consensus verification.
2. Finish Carrot review and multisig work.
3. Complete outstanding audits. Audit quotes were still expected as of late October.
4. Run a public testnet after the stressnet phase. This is the path the developers themselves describe.
5. Cut a release with an announced fork height, then give the ecosystem time to upgrade.

Any of these can slip. That is normal for a consensus change of this size, and it’s the reason the developers avoid promising dates.

Warning: Scammers like big upgrades. There is no “FCMP++ token”, no airdrop, and no need to “migrate” coins to a new address before the fork. Never enter your seed on a website that claims otherwise. Real release builds come from getmonero.org and the monero-project GitHub, with signed hashes.

What XMR users should do now

• Nothing urgent. Your coins are safe in your current wallet. A hard fork changes the rules for new transactions. It does not move or freeze existing balances.
• Stay current on 0.18.5.x. The latest mainnet point release, 0.18.5.4 “Fluorine Fermi”, was announced on 16 October 2026. Keeping up to date makes the eventual fork upgrade easier.
• Expect a deprecation. Custom transaction unlock times are slated for removal with the FCMP++ fork, so services that rely on them should plan ahead.
• Wallet developers and services should follow the stressnet and Carrot work now. New address formats and hot/cold flows will need integration and testing.
• Curious users can join the stressnet, but resync from scratch for v3.0, use throwaway funds only (the coins are worthless anyway), and don’t treat it as private.

Bottom line

FCMP++ is further along than ever. It has a third-generation stressnet, a completed external audit window, and core tree-building code in monerod. But there is still no official activation date. The most concrete public signals are a contributor’s personal hope that code will be ready around Q1 and a draft planner that names late February 2027, and both are explicitly non-binding. We’ll update this page when the project announces a fork height.