🚀 Verge Core v26.7 - Now with Secure Messaging!

Verge Secure Messaging (SMSG) adds paid, encrypted wallet-to-wallet messaging directly into Verge Core for the first time. A user creates or shares a chatkey, which combines a normal Verge address with its public messaging key, then sends an encrypted message through the same peer-to-peer network that already connects Verge nodes. Each paid SMSG message is tied to a lightweight on-chain funding marker, giving the message a verifiable network cost and helping prevent free spam abuse. SMSG-enabled peers can relay, store, discover, and deliver messages for the selected retention window, up to 31 days by default, while regular infrastructure operators can keep the feature disabled on verged unless they explicitly opt in. This gives Verge users a native private messaging layer while preserving a security-first default for pools, exchanges, explorers, and public infrastructure.

The encryption model was upgraded beyond the older basic shared-secret approach. Instead of simply taking an ECDH output, hashing it with SHA512, and splitting the result into encryption and MAC keys, the new SMSG design uses fresh ephemeral secp256k1 ECDH for each message and derives keys with HKDF-SHA256. In simpler terms: every message gets a new one-time cryptographic handshake, and the resulting secret is expanded with a modern key derivation function into separate encryption and authentication keys. The HKDF salt binds the sender's ephemeral public key, recipient key identity, and IV into the derivation, while a domain-separated info string makes the keys specific to Verge SMSG. This improves key separation, reduces cross-protocol risk, and gives each message stronger cryptographic isolation than a static or simpler key-splitting design.

The result is a messaging system that feels practical for users and more robust for the network. Verge-Qt enables SMSG by default for everyday wallet users, while verged keeps it off by default to reduce unnecessary attack surface on infrastructure nodes. Messages support configurable retention from 1 to 31 days, paid anti-spam economics, GUI receipts, confirmation status, chatkey-based addressing, and peer discovery for SMSG-capable nodes. The network layer has also been hardened against spam and DDoS-style abuse with paid message funding, bounded message size and retention, local storage capacity checks, per-peer inventory tracking, rate limits, peer ignore windows, clamped peer discovery, and validation rules that reject oversized, expired, malformed, unsolicited, or unconfirmed message inventory before it can become an unbounded relay or storage burden. From a product perspective, this makes Verge more than a payment network: it becomes a privacy-focused communication and transaction platform where users can send value and encrypted messages from the same wallet. From a technical perspective, SMSG adds authenticated encryption, modern key derivation, paid resource control, bounded storage, and hardened peer inventory handling to make private messaging useful without turning the network into an unmetered data relay.

Other updates included in this release::

• tor 0.4.9.5 -> 0.4.9.6
• libevent 2.1.11 -> 2.1.12
• openssl 4.0.0 -> 4.0.1
• more verbose startup screen/improved startup times
• libsecp256k1 folder replaced with official bitcoin secp256k1 repository submodule

📦 Downloads

🍓 Raspberry Pi (AppImage)

• 📁 verge-aarch64-pi5-appimages.zip
• 🔐 sha256:
• 📦 Size: 26.6 MB

🍏 macOS 14

• 📁 Verge-Qt-macos14.dmg
• 🔐 sha256:
• 📦 Size: 270 MB

🍏 macOS 26

• 📁 Verge-Qt-macos26.dmg
• 🔐 sha256:
• 📦 Size: 268 MB

🐧 Linux AppImage

• 📁 verge-ubuntu24-appimages.zip
• 🔐 sha256:
• 📦 Size: 143 MB

🪟 Windows (Installer)

• 📁 verge-windows64-setup.exe
• 🔐 sha256:
• 📦 Size: 143 MB

🪟 Windows (Portable)

(special note: If you are using the portable zip build on a clean Windows system, run
vc_redist.x64.exe in the same folder, before running verge-qt.exe.

• 📁 verge-windows64bit.zip
• 🔐 sha256:
• 📦 Size: 188 MB