Van der Laan voluntarily gave up his access to the bitcoin client software on Feb. 16 after being at the helm for more than nine years. As the second successor to Bitcoin’s mysterious inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, he was one of the few individuals having final commit access to Bitcoin Core’s GitHub repository.

Nakamoto first owned this administrator key and then transferred it to Gavin Andresen. When Andresen, who received direct instruction from Nakamoto on maintaining bitcoin’s code, stepped down from the project nine years ago, Van der Laan took over. Van der Laan has played the lead role in maintaining all aspects of Bitcoin’s development for even longer than Satoshi. He led all operations involving bug fixes, code reviews, upgrades, software maintenance, and dispute resolution.

Only five Bitcoin Core maintainers remain. With Van der Laan’s departure, Bitcoin’s development will now be steered by five people: Hennadii Stepanov, Michael Ford, Andrew Chow, Marko Falke, and Gloria Zhao.

Each is responsible for an aspect of Bitcoin; for example, Stepanov maintains the network’s graphical user interface, while Ford oversees the build system.

Gloria Zhao, the only woman in the maintainers’ team, writes and reviews the code that governs Bitcoin’s transaction validation process. Andrew Chow is in charge of programming for crypto wallets, which allow investors to store their bitcoin, while Marco Falke focuses on testing.

Together, these coders keep Bitcoin’s digital ledger up to date on its network’s thousands of computers. They must ensure that the software remains compatible with the latest versions of operating systems like Windows or MacOS and that it keeps up with transaction volumes.

Many of the cryptocurrency’s proponents claim that its current value and future potential are partly in the hands of these maintainers.

https://crypto.news/bitcoin-core-has-only-5-developers-left-as-key-maintainer-departs/