Gloria Zhao is a Bitcoin Core developer and author of BIP 331 and BIP 431. Documented repository maintenance is not authority to change node rules unilaterally.
Brink records Zhao joining as its first fellow on 4 January 2021 and becoming a Bitcoin Core maintainer in 2022. Its program overview checked for this review describes her as a former maintainer; a historical article does not establish a present mandate. [Brink — Gloria Zhao dated contribution history] [Brink — program alumni]
Brink documents her work with Bitcoin Core PR Review Club. The club teaches newer contributors the code and review process; its primary purpose is not to get a particular PR merged. Participation or discussion is not release approval. [Brink — program alumni] [Bitcoin Core PR Review Club — purpose]
Zhao signed the developers’ 6 June 2025 statement emphasizing users’ software choice. Local transaction acceptance and relay rules must not be confused with unilateral consensus changes; a signatory does not control all nodes. [Bitcoin Core — relay policy statement]
Her BIP 331 is Draft and proposes sendpackages negotiation plus separate ancestor-information and transaction-data rounds. A proposal description does not establish full deployment on every node. [BIP 331 — Ancestor Package Relay]
A higher-fee child can help its parent through CPFP, but without the available unconfirmed parent a node may not accept it. BIP 331 addresses relay of this dependency; a higher fee does not replace signatures, valid inputs or timely confirmation. [BIP 331 — Ancestor Package Relay]
Bitcoin Core 28.0 introduced limited opportunistic one-parent-one-child, or 1P1C, pairing over existing relay. This is not full BIP 331 deployment. The notes explicitly exclude multiple unconfirmed parents in this P2P flow and warn it is unreliable under adversarial conditions. [BIP 331 — Ancestor Package Relay] [Bitcoin Core 28.0 — release notes]
Zhao’s BIP 431 is an informational document with Draft status. Bitcoin Core 28.0 nevertheless documented TRUC policy for nVersion=3; restricted unconfirmed ancestors and descendants simplify fee bumping. This is mempool policy, not a guarantee against every pinning attack or of timely mining. [Bitcoin Core 28.0 — release notes] [BIP 431 — Topology Restrictions for Pinning]
The submitpackage 28.0 RPC accepts transactions that pass checks, so an error need not roll back the entire package. Read package_msg and individual tx-results. Local success does not guarantee propagation across the network or block inclusion. [Bitcoin Core 28.0 — submitpackage]
For the clearest picture, read this entry together with Mike Hearn, Mempool, Package Relay. The reverse links also lead from Mike Hearn, Sergio Demian Lerner.