Bitcoin Core maintainer Gloria Zhao quits after six-year stint
Bitcoin Core developer Gloria Zhao has stepped down as a maintainer and revoked her Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signing key, concluding about six years in the role.
On Thursday, Zhao submitted a final pull request to the Bitcoin GitHub repository to remove her key from the trusted keys list and relinquish maintainer permissions to update the software.
Named in 2022 as the first publicly known female maintainer, Zhao focused on mempool policy and transaction relay—the rules and peer-to-peer logic that determine which transactions enter nodes’ waiting rooms and how they spread across the network.
She helped design and implement package relay (BIP 331) and TRUC—Topologically Restricted Until Confirmation (BIP 431)—and worked on upgrades to replace-by-fee (RBF) and broader peer-to-peer behavior to make fee bumping more dependable and reduce censorship risks.
Zhao’s work was funded through 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), placing her among a small group of publicly supported, full-time open-source Bitcoin protocol engineers.
In addition to her technical work, Zhao mentored new contributors and co-led the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club, helping junior developers learn to review complex changes within Bitcoin Core’s conservative review process.
Split over OP_RETURN and Knots
Her resignation follows more than a year of public disagreements between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots, as well as debate over removing OP_RETURN limits—centering on whether the default node software should make it harder to use block space for non‑monetary data.
In 2025, Zhao deleted her X account amid personal attacks during the OP_RETURN dispute, after a livestream in which a core developer questioned her credentials.
Reaction was mixed. “They bullied her and made her life as miserable as possible until she rage quit, and quite frankly, I think what they did to her was tragic,” said pseudonymous Bitcoiner Pledditor. Pledditor added that it set a “terrible precedent” and called it, “sad and pathetic.” “Congratulations you finally did it. You bullied one of Bitcoin Core’s most prolific and consistently excellent maintainers until she gave up,” said Chris Seedor, co-founder and CEO at Bitcoin wallet backup company Seedor.
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