diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 67da767..d11558a 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -478,7 +478,7 @@ checksum = "fc652a48c352aef3ea3aed32080501cf3ef6ed5da78602a020c991775b0aff04"
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-api"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "c0mpute-proto",
@@ -493,7 +493,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-bench"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "blake3",
@@ -504,7 +504,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-cli"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "axum",
@@ -534,7 +534,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-core"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "aes-gcm",
  "anyhow",
@@ -574,7 +574,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-doctor"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "serde",
@@ -586,7 +586,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-envelope"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "blake3",
  "bs58",
@@ -599,7 +599,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-gateway"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "axum",
@@ -621,7 +621,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-market"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "c0mpute-envelope",
  "serde",
@@ -631,7 +631,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-net"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "async-trait",
@@ -648,7 +648,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-placement"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "async-trait",
@@ -669,7 +669,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-proto"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "blake3",
  "hex",
@@ -681,7 +681,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-secure-chat"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "aes-gcm",
  "anyhow",
@@ -704,7 +704,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-store"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "blake3",
@@ -722,7 +722,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-transcode"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "c0mpute-proto",
@@ -735,7 +735,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-update"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "hex",
@@ -749,7 +749,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "c0mpute-verify"
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "blake3",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index f8b14a7..f6df997 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ members = [
 ]
 
 [workspace.package]
-version = "0.2.43"
+version = "0.2.44"
 edition = "2024"
 license = "MIT"
 repository = "https://github.com/profullstack/c0mpute"
diff --git a/apps/tui/package.json b/apps/tui/package.json
index e14eafc..e88f5ec 100644
--- a/apps/tui/package.json
+++ b/apps/tui/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@c0mpute/tui",
-  "version": "0.2.43",
+  "version": "0.2.44",
   "private": true,
   "type": "module",
   "bin": {
diff --git a/apps/web/package.json b/apps/web/package.json
index e208a58..f9eda90 100644
--- a/apps/web/package.json
+++ b/apps/web/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "c0mpute",
-  "version": "0.2.43",
+  "version": "0.2.44",
   "private": true,
   "type": "module",
   "scripts": {
diff --git a/apps/web/src/app/releases/latest.json/route.ts b/apps/web/src/app/releases/latest.json/route.ts
index 215ce76..47f8f5c 100644
--- a/apps/web/src/app/releases/latest.json/route.ts
+++ b/apps/web/src/app/releases/latest.json/route.ts
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ export const dynamic = "force-dynamic";
  * this in sync with the workspace version in `Cargo.toml` on each release so a
  * freshly built CLI reports "already latest" rather than a phantom upgrade.
  */
-const FALLBACK_VERSION = "0.2.43";
+const FALLBACK_VERSION = "0.2.44";
 const FALLBACK_MIN_REQUIRED = "0.0.1";
 
 type Channel = "stable" | "beta" | "nightly";
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 38701be..970d519 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "c0mpute-monorepo",
-  "version": "0.2.43",
+  "version": "0.2.44",
   "private": true,
   "workspaces": [
     "apps/*",
diff --git a/packages/shared/package.json b/packages/shared/package.json
index 72f73ea..c000059 100644
--- a/packages/shared/package.json
+++ b/packages/shared/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@c0mpute/shared",
-  "version": "0.2.43",
+  "version": "0.2.44",
   "private": true,
   "type": "module",
   "main": "./dist/index.js",
diff --git a/plugins/ads-manager/module.toml b/plugins/ads-manager/module.toml
index f15d6d5..c799895 100644
--- a/plugins/ads-manager/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/ads-manager/module.toml
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "ads-manager"
 name        = "Ads Manager — shared ad operations layer"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "applications"
 description = "Unified ad operations for the c0mpute network: campaign management, creative registry, publisher inventory, OpenRTB auction primitives, CoinPay escrow, and reporting. Required dependency for ctv-ads and all future ad format plugins."
diff --git a/plugins/coinpay/module.toml b/plugins/coinpay/module.toml
index 853095c..c6445f2 100644
--- a/plugins/coinpay/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/coinpay/module.toml
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "coinpay"
 name        = "CoinPay — DID, payments, escrow, reputation"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "applications"
 description = "Decentralized identifiers, wallet linking, escrow, signed receipts, and worker reputation. The trust spine of the c0mpute network."
diff --git a/plugins/crawl/module.toml b/plugins/crawl/module.toml
index 4f923d6..a654753 100644
--- a/plugins/crawl/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/crawl/module.toml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "crawl"
 name        = "Crawl — distributed web fetching"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "data"
 description = "Decentralized web crawling and page-rendering pool. Static fetches and JS-rendered pages, robots-aware, WARC-capable."
diff --git a/plugins/ctv-ads/module.toml b/plugins/ctv-ads/module.toml
index 53e76b1..6ae8ca6 100644
--- a/plugins/ctv-ads/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/ctv-ads/module.toml
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "ctv-ads"
 name        = "CTV Ads — Connected TV ad marketplace"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "applications"
 description = "Decentralised Connected TV advertising on the c0mpute network. VAST 4.x endpoint, OpenRTB real-time auction, cryptographically verified impressions, CoinPay settlement. Supports Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Smart TVs, and FAST channels. Live-stream integration for ad-monetised broadcasts."
diff --git a/plugins/diffusion/module.toml b/plugins/diffusion/module.toml
index c9cb610..6517fad 100644
--- a/plugins/diffusion/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/diffusion/module.toml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "diffusion"
 name        = "Diffusion — image generation"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "ai"
 description = "Decentralized image generation (Stable Diffusion, SDXL, Flux) on consumer/prosumer GPUs."
diff --git a/plugins/embed/module.toml b/plugins/embed/module.toml
index e28a185..8ef32fc 100644
--- a/plugins/embed/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/embed/module.toml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "embed"
 name        = "Embeddings — vector generation"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "ai"
 description = "Bulk text-embedding generation (sentence-transformers, BGE, Nomic) with CPU fallback and optional GPU acceleration."
diff --git a/plugins/gameserver/module.toml b/plugins/gameserver/module.toml
index f2bed3b..dc12d6d 100644
--- a/plugins/gameserver/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/gameserver/module.toml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "gameserver"
 name        = "Game server — Minecraft / Factorio / Valheim"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "infrastructure"
 description = "Continuous-reservation hosting for game servers. Multi-replica placement, persistent world state on c0mpute storage, proof-of-serve settlement."
diff --git a/plugins/hosting/module.toml b/plugins/hosting/module.toml
index 5e7b0f8..40faff8 100644
--- a/plugins/hosting/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/hosting/module.toml
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "hosting"
 name        = "Hosting — censorship-resistant static sites"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "data"
 description = "Static-site hosting with multi-replica placement, mutable naming, epoch settlement, and slashable proof-of-serve. See DIP-0015."
diff --git a/plugins/infernet/module.toml b/plugins/infernet/module.toml
index 03ca956..a2dd4e9 100644
--- a/plugins/infernet/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/infernet/module.toml
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "infernet"
 name        = "Infernet Protocol — AI inference"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "ai"
 description = "Decentralized AI inference workloads on c0mpute. Runs models on consumer/prosumer GPUs with model-hash and runtime-image verification. Also trains and serves temporal policies (CfC/LTC liquid networks, GRU baseline) on CPU or GPU."
diff --git a/plugins/live-stream/module.toml b/plugins/live-stream/module.toml
index c408649..4c907fe 100644
--- a/plugins/live-stream/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/live-stream/module.toml
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "live-stream"
 name        = "Live Stream — p2p HLS live streaming"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "media"
 description = "Decentralized live video streaming via BitTorrent-style HLS segment swarming. Broadcaster pushes RTMP/SRT; c0mpute nodes swarm segments to viewers. No central CDN. Censorship-resistant. Per-GB micropayments via CoinPay."
diff --git a/plugins/ocr/module.toml b/plugins/ocr/module.toml
index e18011b..ee72afd 100644
--- a/plugins/ocr/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/ocr/module.toml
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "ocr"
 name        = "OCR — document text extraction"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "ai"
 description = "Decentralized OCR for PDFs and scanned documents (Tesseract, PaddleOCR, docTR) with CPU or GPU runners."
diff --git a/plugins/podcast-ads/module.toml b/plugins/podcast-ads/module.toml
index fdef23d..a18ce8f 100644
--- a/plugins/podcast-ads/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/podcast-ads/module.toml
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "podcast-ads"
 name        = "Podcast Ads — audio ad marketplace"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "applications"
 description = "Decentralised audio advertising for c0mpute-hosted podcasts. DAAST 1.0 endpoint, dynamic ad insertion, Podcasting 2.0 <podcast:value> revenue splits, and CoinPay settlement. Publishers sell ad slots; advertisers run campaigns — zero platform cut beyond protocol split."
diff --git a/plugins/podcasting/module.toml b/plugins/podcasting/module.toml
index 3fab24b..c19b832 100644
--- a/plugins/podcasting/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/podcasting/module.toml
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "podcasting"
 name        = "Podcasting — p2p podcast publishing"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "media"
 description = "Censorship-resistant podcast hosting on the c0mpute network. Upload episodes, stream live shows, auto-transcribe, and monetise via CoinPay subscriptions, pay-per-episode, value-for-value, and audio ads — with zero platform cut. RSS 2.0 + Podcasting 2.0 compatible with all major podcast apps."
diff --git a/plugins/podcasts/module.toml b/plugins/podcasts/module.toml
index c986439..909bb8f 100644
--- a/plugins/podcasts/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/podcasts/module.toml
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "podcasts"
 name        = "Podcasts — p2p podcast listener"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "media"
 description = "Discover, subscribe to, and play podcasts hosted on the c0mpute network or any standard RSS feed. Stream live episodes, tip creators directly via CoinPay, and participate in value-for-value streaming payments. Works alongside any existing podcast app via OPML export and local RSS proxy."
diff --git a/plugins/render/module.toml b/plugins/render/module.toml
index 340c44c..e902f7a 100644
--- a/plugins/render/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/render/module.toml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "render"
 name        = "Render — Blender 3D rendering"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "media"
 description = "Decentralized 3D rendering using Blender headless (Cycles/Eevee) across consumer GPUs and CPUs."
diff --git a/plugins/secure-chat/module.toml b/plugins/secure-chat/module.toml
index 7394f22..2be4ab1 100644
--- a/plugins/secure-chat/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/secure-chat/module.toml
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "secure-chat"
 name        = "Secure Chat — E2E encrypted p2p messaging"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "applications"
 description = "End-to-end encrypted peer-to-peer messaging across the c0mpute network. No central server. Keys stay with the user. Identity and reputation via CoinPay DID. Group chats, sealed-sender mode, and offline store-and-forward included."
diff --git a/plugins/storage/module.toml b/plugins/storage/module.toml
index 2dd2b48..c24b500 100644
--- a/plugins/storage/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/storage/module.toml
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "storage"
 name        = "Storage — Reed-Solomon shard service"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "service"
 category    = "data"
 description = "Reed-Solomon 10/14 shard storage with auto-repair. Compute-locality, E2E encryption, content-addressed, pay-as-you-go. See DIP-0012."
diff --git a/plugins/train/module.toml b/plugins/train/module.toml
index 0a5c6af..739ea02 100644
--- a/plugins/train/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/train/module.toml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "train"
 name        = "Fine-tune — LoRA/QLoRA training"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "ai"
 description = "Decentralized model fine-tuning (LoRA, QLoRA) on consumer/prosumer GPUs using axolotl or unsloth."
diff --git a/plugins/transcode/module.toml b/plugins/transcode/module.toml
index 7a58ac3..6d325b1 100644
--- a/plugins/transcode/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/transcode/module.toml
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "transcode"
 name        = "FFmpeg Transcoding"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "media"
 description = "Decentralized audio/video transcoding via FFmpeg with hardware acceleration (NVENC, QSV, AMF, VideoToolbox, AV1)."
diff --git a/plugins/tts/module.toml b/plugins/tts/module.toml
index bac274f..70c4117 100644
--- a/plugins/tts/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/tts/module.toml
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "tts"
 name        = "TTS — text-to-speech"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "ai"
 description = "CPU text-to-speech inference over c0mpute using Piper or Kokoro."
diff --git a/plugins/whisper/module.toml b/plugins/whisper/module.toml
index 9287637..81475e1 100644
--- a/plugins/whisper/module.toml
+++ b/plugins/whisper/module.toml
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 [module]
 id          = "whisper"
 name        = "Whisper — speech-to-text"
-version     = "0.2.43"
+version     = "0.2.44"
 kind        = "workload"
 category    = "ai"
 description = "CPU speech-to-text inference over c0mpute using faster-whisper."