Gavin Andresen handed the Bitcoin Core maintainer role to a colleague on April 7, 2014, in a post on the Bitcoin Foundation's blog1. Wladimir van der Laan "has agreed to take over for me as the" Bitcoin Core Maintainer, Andresen wrote. He explained the pick in one line. “Wladimir first got involved with the Bitcoin project by re-implementing, and vastly improving, the Bitcoin Core user interface,” Andresen wrote.
Van der Laan ran the job for nearly seven years. This piece follows what the job held, what the work looked like in numbers, and why he chose to let it go.
What the maintainer did
A maintainer reviews and merges other people's code into the main project. Andresen said he would keep writing and reviewing code, with less time on releases1. “I’ll just spend a little less time writing Bitcoin Core release announcements, and a little more time catching up on the latest bitcoin-wizards thinking on how best to implement transaction history pruning,” he wrote.
CoinDesk's Kadhim Shubber covered the change on April 8, 20142. His headline called Andresen Bitcoin's "Lead Developer". Van der Laan answered by email and played the change down. “On the other hand, I have been effectively the maintainer of the code for quite a while. In practice nothing changes,” he told CoinDesk.
Who paid for the work? Andresen's post said Bitcoin Foundation members funded van der Laan full-time1. On April 23, 2015, Cointelegraph reported that the MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative would fund him, Andresen and Cory Fields instead9.
Both sides, in their own words
Did one maintainer hold too much of Bitcoin?
“One thing is clear: this is a serious project now, and we need to start taking decentralization seriously”
“Once the 5 developers with commit access to the code had been chosen and Gavin had decided he did not want to be the leader, there was no procedure in place to ever remove one”
The work in numbers
Bitcoin Core's own release notes credit each contributor by name. Version 0.9.0, released on March 19, 2014, thanked 88 people34. The 0.21.0 release, the last major one before he stepped back, came out on January 14, 20217. Its notes thanked 139 people5.
GitHub keeps the rest of the record. Its search counts 841 pull requests opened in Bitcoin Core in 2013, and 612 merged12. A pull request is a proposed code change. By 2020, 2,113 were opened and 1,458 merged. One count dates each pull request by when it opened, the other by when it merged.
Bitcoin Core drew 2,113 pull requests in 2020 and merged 1,458, from 841 and 612 in 2013
Pull requests, or proposed code changes, opened and merged in bitcoin/bitcoin on GitHub, per year
- Pull requests opened
- Pull requests merged
- Height: Pull requests
Source: GitHub (bitcoin/bitcoin) [12].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Pull requests opened | Pull requests merged |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 841 | 612 |
| 2014 | 1,500 | 975 |
| 2015 | 1,169 | 772 |
| 2016 | 1,541 | 1,049 |
| 2017 | 1,825 | 1,193 |
| 2018 | 2,048 | 1,292 |
| 2019 | 1,946 | 1,266 |
| 2020 | 2,113 | 1,458 |
| 2021 | 1,954 | 1,440 |
| 2022 | 1,988 | 1,364 |
So who pressed merge? Van der Laan answered with his own count of git history in January 202111. The tally ran from January 1, 2020, to the day he posted. MarcoFalke made 727 merges and van der Laan 363. Samuel Dobson made 65, Jonas Schnelli 51, Pieter Wuille 7 and fanquake 313. That sums to 1,526 merges, and MarcoFalke's share comes to 47.6 percent. GitHub's search counts 1,458 merged pull requests in calendar 2020, a different measure over a shorter span12.
The step back
Van der Laan posted "The widening gyre" on January 21, 202111. “One thing is clear: this is a serious project now, and we need to start taking decentralization seriously,” he wrote. He named himself as part of the problem. "I realize I am myself somewhat of a centralized bottleneck," he wrote.
His plan aimed to reduce what he called the "bus factor"11. The plan called for moving bitcoincore.org from private ownership to an organization. Release signing used a key in his personal title, and he wanted it renamed. Other maintainers, he wrote, should be able to ship a release on their own.
By his own count, the job had already spread. “Only about 24% of the merges were done by me, last year,” he wrote11. Merges kept their pace after the post. GitHub counts 101 merged pull requests in January 2021 and 1,440 for the full year13.
Bitcoin Core merged 101 pull requests in January 2021, the month van der Laan stepped back
Pull requests merged each calendar month in the bitcoin/bitcoin repository on GitHub
- January 2021, when van der Laan posted his step back: 101
- Every other month
- Height: Pull requests merged
Source: GitHub (bitcoin/bitcoin) [13].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Jan 2016 | 97 |
| Feb 2016 | 51 |
| Mar 2016 | 72 |
| Apr 2016 | 92 |
| May 2016 | 75 |
| Jun 2016 | 101 |
| Jul 2016 | 65 |
| Aug 2016 | 86 |
| Sep 2016 | 123 |
| Oct 2016 | 91 |
| Nov 2016 | 109 |
| Dec 2016 | 87 |
| Jan 2017 | 103 |
| Feb 2017 | 100 |
| Mar 2017 | 129 |
| Apr 2017 | 92 |
| May 2017 | 98 |
| Jun 2017 | 121 |
| Jul 2017 | 91 |
| Aug 2017 | 99 |
| Sep 2017 | 115 |
| Oct 2017 | 70 |
| Nov 2017 | 111 |
| Dec 2017 | 64 |
| Jan 2018 | 70 |
| Feb 2018 | 82 |
| Mar 2018 | 156 |
| Apr 2018 | 147 |
| May 2018 | 102 |
| Jun 2018 | 84 |
| Jul 2018 | 127 |
| Aug 2018 | 141 |
| Sep 2018 | 92 |
| Oct 2018 | 80 |
| Nov 2018 | 109 |
| Dec 2018 | 102 |
| Jan 2019 | 122 |
| Feb 2019 | 108 |
| Mar 2019 | 80 |
| Apr 2019 | 98 |
| May 2019 | 86 |
| Jun 2019 | 75 |
| Jul 2019 | 106 |
| Aug 2019 | 114 |
| Sep 2019 | 102 |
| Oct 2019 | 156 |
| Nov 2019 | 130 |
| Dec 2019 | 89 |
| Jan 2020 | 96 |
| Feb 2020 | 81 |
| Mar 2020 | 127 |
| Apr 2020 | 188 |
| May 2020 | 134 |
| Jun 2020 | 136 |
| Jul 2020 | 132 |
| Aug 2020 | 110 |
| Sep 2020 | 96 |
| Oct 2020 | 86 |
| Nov 2020 | 126 |
| Dec 2020 | 146 |
| Jan 2021 | 101 |
| Feb 2021 | 123 |
| Mar 2021 | 127 |
| Apr 2021 | 117 |
| May 2021 | 141 |
| Jun 2021 | 116 |
| Jul 2021 | 106 |
| Aug 2021 | 101 |
| Sep 2021 | 141 |
| Oct 2021 | 111 |
| Nov 2021 | 105 |
| Dec 2021 | 151 |
What the coverage missed
Press reports in 2014 called the job "lead developer"2. A UK court later asked what such a job owes Bitcoin's users. Tulip Trading, a company associated with Craig Wright, sued van der Laan and other developers14. The company wanted the developers to recover bitcoin it said it had lost in a hack.
The Court of Appeal ruled on February 3, 2023, that the claim raised "a serious issue to be tried"14. “If the decentralised governance of bitcoin really is a myth, then in my judgment there is much to be said for the submission that bitcoin developers, while acting as developers, owe fiduciary duties to the true owners of that property,” Lord Justice Birss wrote.
Van der Laan posted "Of regrets" three days later, on February 615. The post reprints the MIT license, the open-source license he had used for a decade. “So, you’re, effectively, giving away an unlimited license to use your software for anyone to do with what they want, and they get to sue you for millions when it doesn’t work out,” he wrote. Wright dropped the suit against 12 developers in April 2024, Decrypt reported, citing the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund16.
The case for one steady maintainer
Van der Laan's tenure has a plain record. Credited contributors per major release rose from 88 to 139 on his watch45. Merged pull requests rose from 975 in 2014 to 1,458 in 202012. He then moved his own tasks to others. “I will start by delegating my own tasks, and decreasing my involvement,” he wrote11. “I do not intend to stop contributing to Bitcoin, or even to the Bitcoin Core project, but I would like to remove myself from the critical path and take (even more) of a background role,” he added.
The case against
Mike Hearn, a former Bitcoin developer, published his exit essay on January 14, 201610. He aimed at the structure van der Laan inherited. “Once the 5 developers with commit access to the code had been chosen and Gavin had decided he did not want to be the leader, there was no procedure in place to ever remove one,” Hearn wrote.
Hearn also described the developer "responsible for making the releases"10. That developer was "so afraid of conflict" that he "refused to get involved" in the block size fight, Hearn wrote. Hearn left that developer unnamed.
What to watch
Each side has a number to track. GitHub counts 1,827 pull requests opened in 2025 and 1,129 merged12. Bitcoin Core 30.0, released on October 10, 2025, credited 101 contributors68. Van der Laan's case needs those merges spread across many hands. Hearn's case gains if a small group still decides what ships.
Sources
- Gavin Andresen, "Bitcoin Core Maintainer: Wladimir van der Laan," Bitcoin Foundation, Apr. 7, 2014 (Internet Archive copy), https://web.archive.org/web/20140511084233/https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/04/07/bitcoin-core-maintainer-wladimir-van-der-laan/
- Kadhim Shubber, "Gavin Andresen Steps Down as Bitcoin's Lead Developer," CoinDesk, Apr. 8, 2014 (Internet Archive copy), https://web.archive.org/web/20140410211306/http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-steps-bitcoins-lead-developer/
- bitcoin.org, "Bitcoin Core version 0.9.0 released," Mar. 19, 2014, https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.9.0
- Bitcoin Core, "Release notes for Bitcoin Core 0.9.0," GitHub (bitcoin/bitcoin), https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.9.0.md
- Bitcoin Core, "Release notes for Bitcoin Core 0.21.0," GitHub (bitcoin/bitcoin), https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.21.0.md
- Bitcoin Core, "v30.0 Release Notes," GitHub (bitcoin/bitcoin), https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-30.0.md
- Bitcoin Core, "Bitcoin Core 0.21.0," Jan. 14, 2021, https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/0.21.0/
- Bitcoin Core, "Bitcoin Core 30.0," Oct. 10, 2025, https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/30.0/
- Aaron van Wirdum, "MIT to take over funding of three Bitcoin core developers," Cointelegraph, Apr. 23, 2015, https://cointelegraph.com/news/mit-to-take-over-funding-of-three-bitcoin-core-developers
- Mike Hearn, "The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment," blog.plan99.net, Jan. 14, 2016 (Internet Archive copy), https://web.archive.org/web/20170607220742/https://blog.plan99.net/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7
- Wladimir van der Laan, "The widening gyre," Laanwj's blog, Jan. 21, 2021, https://laanwj.github.io/2021/01/21/decentralize.html
- GitHub, "Pull requests, bitcoin/bitcoin," search counts by year read Oct. 13, 2026, https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls?q=is%3Apr
- GitHub, "Merged pull requests, bitcoin/bitcoin," search counts by month read Oct. 13, 2026, https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Amerged
- Court of Appeal (Civil Division), "Tulip Trading Limited (a Seychelles company) v Wladimir Jasper van der Laan & Ors. [2023] EWCA Civ 83," The National Archives (Find Case Law), Feb. 3, 2023, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2023/83
- Wladimir van der Laan, "Of regrets," Laanwj's blog, Feb. 6, 2023, https://laanwj.github.io/2023/02/06/regrets.html
- Jason Nelson, "Has Craig Wright Finally Given Up His Campaign to Claim Bitcoin Was His Idea?," Decrypt, Apr. 18, 2024, https://decrypt.co/226947/has-craig-wright-finally-given-up-bitcoin-inventor-claim