Monero’s Riccardo Spagni retires as network’s lead maintainer

Recently, Monero upgraded its network to RandomX with the intention of making the privacy-centric network ASIC-resistant. However, on a recent session of Monero Talk, it was revealed that the network had lost a quarter of its miners after its transition to RandomX. While the community is still exploring RandomX, the Core Team of Monero in a recent blog post has revealed that lead maintainer, Riccardo Spagni aka fluffypony, is stepping down from his post.

The blog post suggested that a “longtime contributor,” Snipa, would be taking over Spagni’s role as the lead maintainer of the network. However, Spagni will remain involved as he would act as a backup maintainer whenever Snipa isn’t available. While Spagni has been a popular figure in the community, having acted as a lead maintainer for the past five years, Snipa isn’t as well known. The blog post gave the community more information about Snipa and stated,

“He is best known for developing a popular piece of Monero pool software and supporting the network with well-connected nodes. He has substantial coding and auditing experience, and a desire to better Monero’s processes.”

Additionally, the team announced that luigi1111 would advance as the backup maintainer of the CLI repository.

Furthermore, while several community members congratulated Snipa, a few others lauded the platform for upholding the tenet of decentralization. Reddit user, floam412, wrote,

However, not everyone was convinced, with some taking a jab at Monero and Spagni. One Twitter user said that Spagni is “finally initiating the Monero exit scam.” Another Twitter user, @BrianDColwell, tweeted,