When will the next recomended build of sponge be relaesed for a later version of Minecraft other than 1.12

Hi I play on the Server Minecraft online.com its the oldest smp server on minecraft with the same map.
One of the admins iam friends with told me they cant update the server again until sponge releses another recomended build for a later version of Minecarft. It took them seven years to update from 1.7 to 1.12 and iam just tryna see how long it will be before the server can update again thats all

API 8 for 1.16.5 has just been released and experimental builds are presently available. We will be working over the coming weeks to ensure stability before releasing RBs. API 9/1.18.1 is our next target with experimental builds also currently available.

So iam going to assume that the next recomended build for sponge will be 1.16.5 correct not an experimental build but a recomended build and it will probly release somtime this year right thats all I wanna know kind sir

what iam tryna figue out is a time frame on the recomended 1.16.5 build for sponge for servers cause thats whats minecraft online is waiting on to update

this is my last and final reply i swear I dont belive I can fully explain myself over a text forum so insted I made a short video explaing what iam trying to do cause i think you could close this real fast by watching this video and fully understaning what iam trying to say

As referenced in the other post, 1.16.5 is being targeted for our next release due to Forge also targeting it as an LTS. As API 8 has now been stabilised we are working towards getting the implementation to a stable state. We will be publishing a recommended build as soon as we feel the implementation is both reliable and polished. Giving a precise ETA is quite difficult at this time as our development team has been rather busy but rest assured it’s a priority target (part of the reason 1.12.2 is now End of Life).