Gloria Zhao is a former maintainer of Bitcoin Core, the reference implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. She became one of the project’s maintainers in 2022 as part of the transition to a distributed maintainer model after Wladimir van der Laan stepped down. She stepped down from the maintainer role in February 2026.
Bitcoin Core
Zhao’s primary focus in Bitcoin Core was mempool policy and transaction relay — the rules governing how unconfirmed transactions are validated, prioritized, and propagated across the network. Her work on package relay (allowing related transactions to be evaluated as a group) and mempool policy improvements has been critical for making advanced Bitcoin features like the Lightning Network work more reliably.
She was granted commit access to the Bitcoin Core repository in 2022, making her one of the youngest maintainers in the project’s history.
Brink
Zhao is funded by Brink, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Bitcoin open-source development. Brink provides grants and mentorship to Bitcoin Core contributors.
Background
Zhao studied computer science at UC Berkeley. She became involved in Bitcoin development through the Chaincode Labs Summer of Bitcoin program and quickly became one of the most active contributors to the Bitcoin Core codebase.
Related people
Bitcoin Core
Brink