Bitcoin Core developer Gloria Zhao has resigned as maintainer and revoked her Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signing key, ending her as one in every of the project's gatekeepers for about six years.
On Thursday, Zhao submitted her final pull request to Bitcoin's GitHub repository, removing her key from the trusted keys and retiring as one in every of the few maintainers in a position to update Bitcoin's software.
As the primary known female maintainer of 2022, she focused on mempool policies and transaction forwarding: the foundations and peer-to-peer logic that determine which transactions enter node waiting rooms and the way quickly they propagate across the network.
Gloria Zhao definitely takes on the role of Bitcoin supervisor. Source: GitHub
She helped develop and implement Package Relay (BIP 331) and TRUC (Topologically Restricted Until Confirmation, BIP 431), in addition to upgrades to replace-by-fee (RBF) and more comprehensive P2P behavior, making fee increases more reliable and reducing censorship.
Zhao's work was funded by Brink, where she became the organization's first fellow in 2021. Her fellowship was supported by the Human Rights Foundation's Bitcoin Development Fund and Jack Dorsey's Spiral (formerly Square Crypto), making her a small cohort of publicly supported, full-time, open source Bitcoin protocol engineers.
Beyond her technical contributions, Zhao mentored latest contributors and co-led the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club to assist junior developers learn learn how to review complex changes and navigate Core's conservative review culture.
Splitting via OP_RETURN and nodes
Her resignation comes after greater than a yr of public disputes between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots and the lifting of the OP_RETURN limits, a dispute over whether Bitcoin's standard node software should make it tougher to make use of block space for non-monetary data.
In 2025, Zhao deleted her X account because of personal attacks in the course of the OP_RETURN war after a core developer questioned her credentials on a livestream.
While some Bitcoin Core critics celebrated Zhao's departure, others struck a darker tone.
“They bullied her and made her life as miserable as possible until she quit in anger, and albeit I believe what they did to her was tragic,” said the pseudonymous Bitcoiner Pledditor.
Pledditor added that it set a “terrible precedent” and called it “sad and pathetic.”
“Congratulations on finally doing it. You bullied one in every of Bitcoin Core's most prolific and consistently excellent maintainers until she gave up,” said Chris Seedor, co-founder and CEO of Bitcoin wallet backup company Seedor.
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