Minecraft wiki entry for Protocol_version, associated text: All versions, including minor releases and development versions on both Java and Bedrock editions, have their own protocol version. The version takes the form of an ever-increasing positive integer unlike client versions. Since 1.16.4-pre1, protocol versions of Java Edition development releases take the form of very large numbers best represented using hexadecimal (represented by the prefix "0x" in the protocol version tables, starting from 0x40000001 (1073741825 in hexadecimal)). Protocol versions may occasionally be skipped between major releases.