Bitcoin Core developer Gloria Zhao has stepped down as a maintainer and revoked her Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signing key, ending about six years as one of the project’s gatekeepers.
On Thursday, Zhao submitted her last pull request to the Bitcoin GitHub repository, removing her key from the trusted keys and withdrawing herself as one of the few maintainers able to update Bitcoin’s software.
Becoming the first known female maintainer in 2022, she focused on mempool policy and transaction relay: the rules and peer‑to‑peer logic that decide which transactions get into nodes’ waiting rooms and how quickly they propagate across the network.
She helped design and implement package relay (BIP 331) and TRUC (Topologically Restricted Until Confirmation, BIP 431), along with upgrades to replace‑by‑fee (RBF) and broader P2P behavior, making fee bumping more reliable and reducing censorship.
Zhao’s work was funded through Brink, where she became the organization’s first fellow in 2021, with her fellowship backed by the Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund and Jack Dorsey’s Spiral (formerly Square Crypto), placing her among a small cohort of publicly supported, full‑time open‑source Bitcoin protocol engineers.
Beyond her technical contributions, Zhao mentored new contributors and co‑ran the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club, helping junior developers learn how to review complex changes and navigate Core’s conservative review culture.
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Split over OP_RETURN and Knots
Her resignation comes after more than a year of public disputes between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots, and the removal of OP_RETURN limits, a fight over whether Bitcoin’s 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 war, after a livestream in which a core developer questioned her credentials.
While some Bitcoin Core critics celebrated Zhao’s departure, others took a more somber tone.
“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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