Gloria Zhao on Bitcoin Network Defense: Core Developers, Decentralized Nodes, and Emerging Tech Threats

Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell

In this episode with Bitcoin Core dev Gloria Zhao we discuss:

• Second generation immigrant pursuing grant-funded development over job at Google, Meta, etc.
• The verifiability of Bitcoin
• Do we have enough nodes around the world?
• Block scarcity
• Is Bitcoin really nation-state resistant and unhackable?
• Should people put all their money into Bitcoin?
• Financing core devs and incentives
• Can AI or quantum computing crack Bitcoin?
• Will there be another Block Size War?

GLOSSARY:

• Bitcoin Core: Software considered the reference implementation for the Bitcoin protocol. It is the continuation of Satoshi Nakamoto’s original bitcoin software released in 2009.
• Block: A block is a record in the blockchain that contains transactions. Roughly every 10 minutes, on average, a new block is appended to the blockchain through mining.
• Block Size: The amount of data that can be stored in a block. This size is limited to maintain the efficiency and integrity of the blockchain.
• Node: A computer that connects to the Bitcoin network.
• Private Key: A private key is a piece of data that proves your right to spend bitcoins from a specific wallet through a cryptographic signature.
• UTXO: Unspent Transaction Output - An output that has not been sent to another address. The bitcoin wallet balance is calculated from adding up unspent outputs.

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BIO: Gloria is one of the maintainers of Bitcoin Core, primarily focused on the peer-to-peer protocol. Her projects include package relay (BIP 331) and TRUC (BIP 431), aimed at reducing censorship vectors and fee-bumping inefficiencies in transaction relay. She is sponsored by Brink, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting open source Bitcoin development. Visit https://brink.dev and https://bitcoinops.org.

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This podcast is for educational purposes and should not be construed as official investment advice.

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