Bitcoin Core Maintainer Gloria Zhao Resigns, Revokes Signing Key
Gloria Zhao, known for her contributions to Bitcoin Core, announced her resignation and revoked her cryptographic signing key on Feb. 5, 2026. She removed the key used for signing commits and releases, a step that immediately severs that trust path and requires maintainers to clean up any associated privileges. The project has not reported any security incident tied to the revocation.
While the revocation underscores the importance of key management, it is unlikely to disrupt Bitcoin itself: Bitcoin Core relies on a multi-maintainer model, reproducible builds and peer review to verify releases. The Core team will need to reassign signing responsibilities and ensure repositories reflect the change; users and integrators should continue to verify binaries and signatures using existing verification procedures. The episode is a reminder that human trust and cryptographic hygiene both matter for open-source infrastructure.