Good morning,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have another high-profile X account hack to report. This time of Bitcoin Core maintainer Gloria Zhao’s X account.
Her account was reported yesterday by multiple of her peers as compromised. Though we’re not sure of the reason for the hack, the important takeaway is to avoid engaging with any messages or links from her account for the time being.
My readers who are long-time crypto industry veterans are probably all too familiar with this type of warning, which is frequently seen on crypto Twitter for all types of accounts, from individual to corporate, and already know how to stay vigilant against malicious impersonators, even if the messages or posts are from a verified X handle.
What I’m surprised by is less the event itself, and more the response from certain Bitcoin community members regarding what this hack could mean for Bitcoin’s protocol security.
So, along with the usual Bitcoin development update, I’ll also share clarifications in this newsletter about what Zhao’s X account hack explicitly does not mean for Bitcoin’s security.
Yours truly,
Christine D. Kim
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⏱️Core Release Schedule
(For background on the Bitcoin software development process, refer to the Bitcoin Governance 101 document in the BTC Toolkit.)
First, a quick overview of Bitcoin Core’s software release schedule and the status of the next major release:
Latest Stable Major Release: Bitcoin Core 30.0*
Release Date: October 13, 2025
Latest Stable Minor Release: Bitcoin Core 30.2*
Release Date: January 13, 2026
Upcoming Major Release: Bitcoin Core 31.0
Target Release Date: April 10, 2026
Open issues: 10
Closed issues: 33
Milestone progress: 76%
The previous week’s snapshot showed 12 open issues, 30 closed, and a milestone progress of 71%.
*Warning: Bitcoin Core v30.0 and 30.1 contain a wallet migration bug that may result in a loss of funds. A fix for the bug has been included in v30.2. Out of an abundance of caution, users should only attempt wallet migrations using v30.2.
📧 You’ve Got Mail! (& Other News)
(For a comprehensive overview of all major Bitcoin development meetings and discussion forums, refer to the Bitcoin Development Meetings document in the BTC Toolkit.)
An overview of notable Bitcoin Core development discussions and news, sourced from Gnusha Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Logs, the Bitcoin Development Mailing List, and other public forums:
Last Thursday, Bitcoin Core developers gathered for their weekly IRC meeting. (Gnusha IRC Logs)
Updates were shared from the following working groups: Fuzzing, Silent Payments, and Cluster Mempool. More information on these working groups is available in this BTC Toolkit post.
A new, resource-intensive test, called the “Valgrind fuzz” job, has been causing builds to fail on forked copies of the Bitcoin Core repository. Developers debated the trade-offs between preserving strong testing guarantees for Core and supporting forks of the software as development sandboxes.
Bitcoin developers finalized updates to the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process, as defined in BIP-3. (Bitcoin Development Mailing List)
Support is growing in the Bitcoin developer community for a new post-quantum secure digital signature scheme called SHRINCS. (Delving Bitcoin)
Bitcoin Core developer “Setavenger” outlined a way to improve the user experience of Silent Payments by adding optional incoming payment notifications via the decentralized messaging network Nostr. (Delving Bitcoin)
The X account of Bitcoin Core maintainer Gloria Zhao was hacked. Users should not engage with any messages sent from Zhao’s X account. (X)
☁️ That’s all for my round-up of Bitcoin Core development discussion and news. Continue reading for my insights and pointed takeaways on these updates. To read the rest of the newsletter, make sure you are signed up for a premium subscription:
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🔦 Discussion Spotlight
(For an overview of the key participants in the Bitcoin development process, refer to the Bitcoin Project Contributor Directory in the BTC Toolkit.)
The dangers of working in crypto
Work in the crypto industry long enough, and you’re almost guaranteed to become a target for some kind of account takeover or wallet hack.
Getting hacked has become somewhat of a grim rite of passage in this industry—and for understandable reasons. Millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency are locked in applications and wallets that are entirely digital and controlled strictly by code.
Small mistakes, overlooked edge cases, or successful social engineering attacks can lead to virtually irreversible losses that neither the government nor law enforcement can claw back.
