During my visit to the MIT Bitcoin Expo in Boston over the weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to sit down and chat with Gloria Zhao, a contributor and maintainer of Bitcoin Core.
Gloria started her journey with Bitcoin Core in 2020, just before she completed her studies at UC Berkeley that same year. Choosing to forgo a full-time position at Google following her college internship, she embraced the chance to contribute to Bitcoin Core full-time, supported by Brink and with assistance from the Human Rights Foundation and Spiral.
In 2022, she assumed the role of Bitcoin Core maintainer, becoming one of the developers authorized to push new code into the Bitcoin Core repository. She stepped into this role on the same day Pieter Wuille resigned.
Beyond her contributions and maintenance duties, Gloria also mentors newer contributors to Bitcoin Core. She collaborates with Stéphan Vuylsteke in organizing the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club, which conducts weekly reviews of open pull requests that suggest new code for Bitcoin Core. Interested participants can join the club here (consider this a gentle reminder).
In our discussion, Gloria shared insights about her focus on the mempool within Bitcoin Core. We explored the significance of a decentralized and open mempool for enhancing Bitcoin’s resistance to censorship, her ongoing work on package relay (which optimizes fee management and reliability by transmitting transactions as groups), the interaction of the mempool with layer two systems, and the upcoming plans to maintain a robust and efficient mempool.
You can view the interview here:
