QUIC protocol implementation in Node.js has been delayed for 6 years due to OpenSSL's lack of support for required APIs. OpenSSL 3.5, released in April 2025, finally includes the necessary QUIC APIs that allow direct access to TLS internals. This breakthrough enables Node.js 25 to include the first official QUIC implementation, scheduled for October 2025. QUIC aims to improve performance over TCP+TLS by reducing handshake round-trips from 3 to 1, though studies show it can be up to 45% slower than HTTP/2 in some scenarios.