🚀 Verge Core v26.8 - Tor and OpenSSL update, and lots of hardening!

• switch leveldb to direct submodule
• OpenSSL 4.0.1 -> 4.0.2
• Expat 2.4.8 -> 2.8.3
• Tor 0.4.9.7 -> 0.4.9.11

Tons of block/PoW hardening:

• Empty decodeblock/submitblock inputs are rejected before wallet access, signing, or vtx[0] access.
• The existing algorithm-frequency rule (no more than 5) is now enforced during header acceptance, preventing invalid high-work header chains from influencing synchronization.
• Lyra2 allocation failures are leak-free and deterministically produce a failing PoW hash.
• Blocks are marked fChecked only after successful signature verification.
• Added regression coverage for malformed blocks, signing safety, cache ordering, and algorithm-frequency behavior.
• Block RPC decoding now rejects empty, oversized, malformed, and trailing-byte payloads.
• submitblock checks duplicates and validates PoW, Merkle root, structure, and size before accessing the wallet or signing.
• Invalid mining algorithm names now fail explicitly instead of silently selecting Scrypt.
• Added regression coverage for strict decoding, algorithm parsing, DGW output, and all five chainwork weights.
• Excluded block-signature loop and low-S changes because they could change block acceptance and require consensus coordination.

📦 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 launching verge-qt.exe.

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