Gloria Zhao Steps Up As The First Female Bitcoin Core Maintainer Post Pieter Wuille’s Farewell
- Gloria Zhao has become the first female Bitcoin Core maintainer
- Pieter Wuille’s departed after contributing to the Core since 2011
- Zhao was nominated by several contributors and current maintainers
Gloria Zhao, a developer, has become the first female Bitcoin Core maintainer as per our findings, making a major milestone in the 13-year-old history of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency. Zhao’s arrival coincides with the departure of Belgian Pieter Wuille as a Core maintainer.
Zhao was accepted as the Bitcoin Core maintainer on Thursday when the community of contributors and current maintainers nominated and voted in favor of the developer.
These Core maintainers have the necessary permission to approve any changes to the Bitcoin software and also are responsible for maintaining the integrity of the blockchain network by continuously working on the cryptocurrency code.
Zhao was voted to become a Bitcoin Core Maintainer owing to her contribution and experience as a developer over the years.
“She has been actively working on Bitcoin Core for over two years, predominantly on mempool and validation code. I know she has a lot of thoughts on how to improve the code around her and more recently she also reviewed and helped improve the wallet.”
Maintainer Michael Ford wrote when proposing Zhao to the role.
Farewell to Bitcoin Core maintainer Pieter Wuille
As mentioned above, Zhao’s arrival as the first female Bitcoin Core maintainer matched Pieter Wuille’s announcement of departure. Wuille contributed to many Bitcoin network upgrades including BIP 32 seed phrases, SegWit, and Taproot/Schnorr. His departure caused unrest in the crypto community.
However, Wuille was quick enough to reveal that he won’t stop contributing to code, review, and all the projects that he is already a part of.
He added that he won’t be a part of the maintenance team of Bitcoin Core and is, therefore, giving up his permissions. Wuille applied for the request to remove his key from the trusted key group on GitHub.
Now that Wuille has left the team, the people left are Hennadi Stepanov, Marco Falke, Wladimir J. Van Der Laan, and Michael Ford. However, Zhao will join as the fifth member.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
