diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
index c3f337a53..ae8504ebe 100644
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -153,3 +153,13 @@
 	url = https://github.com/vacp2p/zerokit.git
 	ignore = dirty
 	branch = master
+[submodule "vendor/nim-regex"]
+	path = vendor/nim-regex
+	url = https://github.com/nitely/nim-regex.git
+	ignore = untracked
+	branch = master
+[submodule "vendor/nim-unicodedb"]
+	path = vendor/nim-unicodedb
+	url = https://github.com/nitely/nim-unicodedb.git
+	ignore = untracked
+	branch = master
diff --git a/apps/wakunode2/config.nim b/apps/wakunode2/config.nim
index d1e075556..193a8db76 100644
--- a/apps/wakunode2/config.nim
+++ b/apps/wakunode2/config.nim
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 import
-  std/[strutils, nre],
+  std/strutils,
   stew/results,
   chronicles, 
   chronos,
+  regex,
   confutils, 
   confutils/defs, 
   confutils/std/net,
@@ -473,8 +474,7 @@ proc defaultListenAddress*(): ValidIpAddress =
 proc defaultPrivateKey*(): PrivateKey =
   crypto.PrivateKey.random(Secp256k1, crypto.newRng()[]).value
 
-proc readValue*(r: var TomlReader, val: var crypto.PrivateKey)
-               {.raises: [Defect, IOError, SerializationError].} =
+proc readValue*(r: var TomlReader, val: var crypto.PrivateKey) {.raises: [SerializationError].} =
   val = try: parseCmdArg(crypto.PrivateKey, r.readValue(string))
         except CatchableError as err:
           raise newException(SerializationError, err.msg)
@@ -487,7 +487,7 @@ let DbUrlRegex = re"^[\w\+]+:\/\/[\w\/\\\.\:\@]+$"
 proc validateDbUrl*(val: string): ConfResult[string] =
   let val = val.strip()
 
-  if val == "" or val.match(DbUrlRegex).isSome():
+  if val == "" or val.match(DbUrlRegex):
     return ok(val)
   else:
     return err("invalid 'db url' option format: " & val)
@@ -498,7 +498,7 @@ let StoreMessageRetentionPolicyRegex = re"^\w+:\w$"
 proc validateStoreMessageRetentionPolicy*(val: string): ConfResult[string] =
   let val = val.strip()
 
-  if val == "" or val.match(StoreMessageRetentionPolicyRegex).isSome():
+  if val == "" or val.match(StoreMessageRetentionPolicyRegex):
     return ok(val)
   else:
     return err("invalid 'store message retention policy' option format: " & val)
diff --git a/vendor/nim-regex b/vendor/nim-regex
new file mode 160000
index 000000000..ab9873553
--- /dev/null
+++ b/vendor/nim-regex
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit ab98735539ddd8a1eaaa795fd2ca65293c1640b3
diff --git a/vendor/nim-unicodedb b/vendor/nim-unicodedb
new file mode 160000
index 000000000..c3c9ae079
--- /dev/null
+++ b/vendor/nim-unicodedb
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit c3c9ae079ab2eed33ffe5ca27ec4013beed7647f
diff --git a/waku.nimble b/waku.nimble
index 693a7dea7..21b76dd4d 100644
--- a/waku.nimble
+++ b/waku.nimble
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ license       = "MIT or Apache License 2.0"
 #bin           = @["build/waku"]
 
 ### Dependencies
-requires "nim >= 1.2.0",
+requires "nim >= 1.6.0",
   "chronicles",
   "confutils",
   "chronos",
@@ -21,7 +21,8 @@ requires "nim >= 1.2.0",
   "metrics",
   "libp2p", # Only for Waku v2
   "web3",
-  "presto"
+  "presto",
+  "regex"
 
 ### Helper functions
 proc buildBinary(name: string, srcDir = "./", params = "", lang = "c") =