Jonas Schnelli leaves the Bitcoin Core development team

One of the leading Bitcoin Core developers, Jonas Schnelli, has decided to leave the project due to shifting priorities and rising legal risks associated with writing code for the world’s first cryptocurrency. He said new participants should join the initiative on an anonymous basis.

Dear Bitcoiners

I decided to step down as Bitcoin Core maintainer and contributor.

The last years where amazing and I coded, discussed and learned so much!

I started contributing in 2013 and went full time in 2015. What a ride!

But now, it’s time for me to move on.

Thread 👇

— Jonas Schnelli (@_jonasschnelli_) October 21, 2021

«You might ask, why now? What happened? Sometimes interests change, and you can’t do anything about it. Also, I feel that legal risks for Bitcoin developers are growing every year (this can be stressful),» — Schnelli wrote.

He believes that over the past years the Bitcoin Core team has attracted many “experienced and highly skilled” developers, and the client is now “in the best hands.”

Schnelli emphasised that he is not seeking a new role or project. He plans to take a leave of absence for several months. At the same time, he will remain an active participant in the cryptocurrency community.

«I’ll be hanging around here and will continue to write interesting thoughts about Bitcoin (and I won’t stop criticising noisy hecklers),» Schnelli wrote.

Schnelli joined the Bitcoin Core team in 2013, and has been full-time since 2015.

As a reminder, in January 2021 the Nasdaq-listed mining company Marathon Patent Group awarded Schnelli a grant of $96 000. 

Previously, Bitcoin Core was funded by Bitmain, but in December 2020 the equipment maker discontinued the program.

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