Bitcoin Foundation’s Gavin Andresen has code repository access revoked

Gavin Andresen, chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, has had his access to the Bitcoin Core code repository revoked following his support for Craig Wright, who claimed earlier this week he was Satoshi Nakamoto.

The Guardian reported bitcoin developer Wladimir van der Laan’s blog post, which included his thoughts on the events over the past week and said that similar to others within the bitcoin community, Laan was seriously concerned over Andresen’s judgement supporting Wright’s claim. The Bitcoin Core community then decided it was “prudent” to revoke Andresen’s ownership of the bitcoin organization on github, the current location of the Bitcoin Core repository.

“In the past he has stated that ‘Satoshi can have write access to the github repo any time he asks.’, so if he is absolutely convinced that this is Satoshi, there is a risk that he’d give away the repository to a scammer.”

The Register stated that Bitcoin Core powers almost 70 percent of bitcoin nodes.

Andresen took over bitcoin code development after Nakamoto had left the scene. However, Laan explained that Andresen was no longer acting as a “maintainer” for Bitcoin Core. Indeed, Laan went on to say that Andresen’s support was the final straw, and that his access had been considered a “liability” for some time.

“Gavin hadn’t done anything as a maintainer for a year or so, and before that he already was hardly active for a long time.”

The Register also reported that Andresen still helps maintain Bitcoin Classic, which consists of around 25 percent of bitcoin nodes.

Image courtesy of Bitcoin Foundation