Bitcoin lead developer announces his resignation

What’s new? Bitcoin lead developer Wladimir van der Laan has announced that he would soon resign. He announced his decision under a tweet by Samson Mow, the former head of blockchain technology company Blockstream, who pointed out a bug in the network’s code that “could have killed Bitcoin.” After a lengthy discussion, Van der Laan wrote that “it’s soon time for me to move on to other things.” The developer had previously repeatedly announced his decision to end work with bitcoin. However, he never appointed a successor.

ossification or not, i think it's soon time for me to move on to other things— orionwl (@orionwl) August 8, 2022

What is known about Van der Laan? He is the second successor to the bitcoin creator known under the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. He succeeded developer Gavin Andresen in his position. Van der Laan has maintained the network’s code repository for 8 years. He is also one of the few people who have access to GitHub Bitcoin Core.

However, Van der Laan wrote in his blog that the management of bitcoincore.org is better left to an organization rather than an individual. On his website, the developer repeatedly mentioned the resignation. He also promoted the idea that bitcoin should become “more decentralized.” Van der Laan covered in detail the relevant amendments to the network’s code for future developers.

In a Twitter correspondence, Van der Laan noted that he was “burnt out” and “tired of the same discussions.” “I changed, the world changed, and i feel it’s time for something else,” he added.

it isn't one thing! i'm just kinda burnt out, it's stressful, and tired of the same discussions, the same issuesit's been a long time! i changed, the world changed, and i feel it's time for something else— orionwl (@orionwl) August 9, 2022

What happened before? In May, self-proclaimed bitcoin creator Craig Wright sued crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. In the lawsuit, he claims that the platforms sell a fake asset with the ticker symbol BTC, under the guise of a real one. According to him, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) can be considered the only cryptocurrency that has fully implemented the original Bitcoin protocol.