The Matrix core team is busier than ever, juggling hundreds of Matrix Spec Core Proposals and undergoing some major techtonic shifts as Matrix evolves into the ultimate secure decentralised communication network. In this talk, we'll give a high-level survey of the state of the core project, including: * How we're ensuring that flagship clients are as attractive as possible to a mainstream audience - and why we will fail if we don't. * How we're making Matrix go fast via v3 sync and fast room joins * How matrix-rust-sdk is becoming a flagship client SDK * How we're getting a full end-to-end security of the reference Matrix stack * How we're tackling abuse on the public Matrix network * How Matrix is evolving to use cases beyond chat.