On January 8th, the Bitcoin Core team promoted developer TheCharlatan (X: @sedited) to core maintainer, making him the sixth member to hold Trusted Keys. The other five core maintainers holding Trusted Keys include: Marco Falke (promoted in 2016), Gloria Zhao (promoted in 2022), Ryan Ofsky (promoted in 2023), Hennadii Stepanov (promoted in 2021), and Ava Chow (promoted in 2021).
This appointment marks the first addition of a Trusted Key holder since 2023. Over the past decade, only 13 people have been granted this privilege, which speaks to its importance and the rigor of the selection process.
Bitcoin Core Core Maintainers: The “Editors” of Bitcoin Developers
Bitcoin Core is currently the primary development and maintenance team for the Bitcoin mainnet. It is responsible for writing, maintaining, testing, and releasing the software suite used by most full nodes, along with supporting tools and documentation. Bitcoin Core operates on a non-profit basis, relying primarily on funding from external companies.
The Bitcoin Core development team consists of 41 members who have contributed the vast majority of the project’s code. Among them, only 6 developers are granted the status of “core maintainer” — they are currently the only 6 people in the world with the authority to merge code into Bitcoin Core and sign released binary files.
6 Core Maintainer Signatures
To draw an analogy, Bitcoin Core core maintainers are like the “editors” of the bitcoin network’s developer community. Anyone can contribute code and submit PRs to the code repository, but only core maintainers have the authority to merge code into the official repository and sign releases. This is similar to editors reviewing manuscripts and deciding whether developers’ code is accepted and published, or sent back for revision.
The signatures of Bitcoin Core core maintainers guarantee security, assuring all nodes and users that the release is “official and unaltered.” However, Bitcoin Core core maintainers do not have the direct power to trigger changes to on-chain rules. For example, even if Bitcoin Core core maintainers have signed and released binary files indicating that the Bitcoin network will undergo a soft fork or hard fork, whether the upgrade will actually succeed requires adoption and consensus from users and miners, not just the signature of Bitcoin Core core maintainers.
When Bitcoin was first created, Satoshi Nakamoto was the sole core maintainer with the authority to modify the core code repository. Later, Satoshi Nakamoto passed this privilege to Gavin Andresen, and subsequently to Wladimir van der Laan. In other words, for a long time, the power to maintain and modify the Bitcoin network code was concentrated in one person’s hands. Until 2022, when Wladimir van der Laan stepped down and became embroiled in litigation with Craig Wright (who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto), this power finally began to be decentralized.
Nevertheless, Bitcoin Core core maintainers remain an important role. Those who become core maintainers typically enjoy high trust and reputation within the community, or have made outstanding contributions to the Bitcoin network.
For example, Ava Chow, one of the core maintainers, is a transgender female developer who, in 2024, rejected Luke Dashjr’s PR when core developer Luke Dashjr attempted to restrict Ordinals transactions at the consensus level, citing “lack of consensus and noise-making.” This action prevented a potentially severe Bitcoin network consensus split, making her an unsung hero.
Ava Chow at Bitcoin 2024 Event
For information about the contributions and involvement of other core maintainers, please refer to previous articles (Related Reading: Who Is Guarding Satoshi’s Legacy? Unveiling the 41-Person Army Behind Bitcoin’s Trillion-Dollar Valuation). Next, we will introduce why TheCharlatan qualified to become the 6th core maintainer.
TheCharlatan: Ten Years of Crypto Development Experience
TheCharlatan graduated from the Computer Science Department of ETH Zurich and is from South Africa. He focuses on reproducibility and Bitcoin Core’s verification logic. In a 2024 blog post, he claimed to have been developing this project for over two years. TheCharlatan’s work systematically deconstructs, organizes, and modularizes Bitcoin Core’s verification logic, enabling other users to safely reuse it.
TheCharlatan
TheCharlatan is highly popular among Bitcoin Core core developers. During the process of his promotion to core maintainer, at least 20 members expressed agreement. When glozow nominated him, he praised: “He is a reliable reviewer with extensive work experience in critical areas of the codebase, thoughtfully considers what we deliver to users and developers, and has a strong understanding of the technical consensus process.”
Bitcoin Core Core Developer Group Chat Content (Translated)
According to his GitHub account information, TheCharlatan first engaged in crypto development in 2015, creating a cryptocurrency price ticker tool — a simple Linux desktop widget with built-in price alerts that could trigger when preset thresholds were reached. After 2017, his crypto development activities became more frequent. Starting in 2018, he formally began contributing code to Bitcoin Core. Based on this, we can infer that TheCharlatan first contacted Bitcoin Core 8 years ago, making him a veteran contributor.
It’s also worth noting that from 2021-2022, TheCharlatan also contributed to a Farcaster project’s codebase. This project allowed people to exchange Bitcoin and Monero in a peer-to-peer manner with anyone running a Farcaster node.
TheCharlatan indeed has a particular affinity for Monero. He researched potential burning issues that could arise from using hardware wallets to transfer Monero in 2020 and discussed Monero’s time-lock vulnerabilities.
Of course, true tech enthusiasts can be difficult to figure out. TheCharlatan frequently retweets technical tweets on X platform but rarely expresses his own opinions (in May 2025, he posted that he increasingly dislikes NFTs). However, starting from June 2025, he repeats posting a tweet monthly with the content: “Cash on the internet. No auto-updates.”
I was worried this might be some cryptic language between bitcoin tech enthusiasts or some cultural slogan I’m unaware of, so I asked AI to explain what these two statements mean. AI said these two statements actually express a very extreme form of bitcoin fundamentalism:
“True internet-native cash should be as simple and crude as cash, unchangeable. Once you start with auto-updates, governance voting, and frequent rule changes, it’s no longer cash anymore, but has become another centralized/semi-centralized/manipulable ‘digital bank account’.”
三年来初めて、ビットコインの第6のコアメンテナが誕生
Author | Golem (@web 3_golem)
On January 8th, the Bitcoin Core team promoted developer TheCharlatan (X: @sedited) to core maintainer, making him the sixth member to hold Trusted Keys. The other five core maintainers holding Trusted Keys include: Marco Falke (promoted in 2016), Gloria Zhao (promoted in 2022), Ryan Ofsky (promoted in 2023), Hennadii Stepanov (promoted in 2021), and Ava Chow (promoted in 2021).
This appointment marks the first addition of a Trusted Key holder since 2023. Over the past decade, only 13 people have been granted this privilege, which speaks to its importance and the rigor of the selection process.
Bitcoin Core Core Maintainers: The “Editors” of Bitcoin Developers
Bitcoin Core is currently the primary development and maintenance team for the Bitcoin mainnet. It is responsible for writing, maintaining, testing, and releasing the software suite used by most full nodes, along with supporting tools and documentation. Bitcoin Core operates on a non-profit basis, relying primarily on funding from external companies.
The Bitcoin Core development team consists of 41 members who have contributed the vast majority of the project’s code. Among them, only 6 developers are granted the status of “core maintainer” — they are currently the only 6 people in the world with the authority to merge code into Bitcoin Core and sign released binary files.
6 Core Maintainer Signatures
To draw an analogy, Bitcoin Core core maintainers are like the “editors” of the bitcoin network’s developer community. Anyone can contribute code and submit PRs to the code repository, but only core maintainers have the authority to merge code into the official repository and sign releases. This is similar to editors reviewing manuscripts and deciding whether developers’ code is accepted and published, or sent back for revision.
The signatures of Bitcoin Core core maintainers guarantee security, assuring all nodes and users that the release is “official and unaltered.” However, Bitcoin Core core maintainers do not have the direct power to trigger changes to on-chain rules. For example, even if Bitcoin Core core maintainers have signed and released binary files indicating that the Bitcoin network will undergo a soft fork or hard fork, whether the upgrade will actually succeed requires adoption and consensus from users and miners, not just the signature of Bitcoin Core core maintainers.
When Bitcoin was first created, Satoshi Nakamoto was the sole core maintainer with the authority to modify the core code repository. Later, Satoshi Nakamoto passed this privilege to Gavin Andresen, and subsequently to Wladimir van der Laan. In other words, for a long time, the power to maintain and modify the Bitcoin network code was concentrated in one person’s hands. Until 2022, when Wladimir van der Laan stepped down and became embroiled in litigation with Craig Wright (who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto), this power finally began to be decentralized.
Nevertheless, Bitcoin Core core maintainers remain an important role. Those who become core maintainers typically enjoy high trust and reputation within the community, or have made outstanding contributions to the Bitcoin network.
For example, Ava Chow, one of the core maintainers, is a transgender female developer who, in 2024, rejected Luke Dashjr’s PR when core developer Luke Dashjr attempted to restrict Ordinals transactions at the consensus level, citing “lack of consensus and noise-making.” This action prevented a potentially severe Bitcoin network consensus split, making her an unsung hero.
Ava Chow at Bitcoin 2024 Event
For information about the contributions and involvement of other core maintainers, please refer to previous articles (Related Reading: Who Is Guarding Satoshi’s Legacy? Unveiling the 41-Person Army Behind Bitcoin’s Trillion-Dollar Valuation). Next, we will introduce why TheCharlatan qualified to become the 6th core maintainer.
TheCharlatan: Ten Years of Crypto Development Experience
TheCharlatan graduated from the Computer Science Department of ETH Zurich and is from South Africa. He focuses on reproducibility and Bitcoin Core’s verification logic. In a 2024 blog post, he claimed to have been developing this project for over two years. TheCharlatan’s work systematically deconstructs, organizes, and modularizes Bitcoin Core’s verification logic, enabling other users to safely reuse it.
TheCharlatan
TheCharlatan is highly popular among Bitcoin Core core developers. During the process of his promotion to core maintainer, at least 20 members expressed agreement. When glozow nominated him, he praised: “He is a reliable reviewer with extensive work experience in critical areas of the codebase, thoughtfully considers what we deliver to users and developers, and has a strong understanding of the technical consensus process.”
Bitcoin Core Core Developer Group Chat Content (Translated)
According to his GitHub account information, TheCharlatan first engaged in crypto development in 2015, creating a cryptocurrency price ticker tool — a simple Linux desktop widget with built-in price alerts that could trigger when preset thresholds were reached. After 2017, his crypto development activities became more frequent. Starting in 2018, he formally began contributing code to Bitcoin Core. Based on this, we can infer that TheCharlatan first contacted Bitcoin Core 8 years ago, making him a veteran contributor.
It’s also worth noting that from 2021-2022, TheCharlatan also contributed to a Farcaster project’s codebase. This project allowed people to exchange Bitcoin and Monero in a peer-to-peer manner with anyone running a Farcaster node.
TheCharlatan indeed has a particular affinity for Monero. He researched potential burning issues that could arise from using hardware wallets to transfer Monero in 2020 and discussed Monero’s time-lock vulnerabilities.
Of course, true tech enthusiasts can be difficult to figure out. TheCharlatan frequently retweets technical tweets on X platform but rarely expresses his own opinions (in May 2025, he posted that he increasingly dislikes NFTs). However, starting from June 2025, he repeats posting a tweet monthly with the content: “Cash on the internet. No auto-updates.”
I was worried this might be some cryptic language between bitcoin tech enthusiasts or some cultural slogan I’m unaware of, so I asked AI to explain what these two statements mean. AI said these two statements actually express a very extreme form of bitcoin fundamentalism:
“True internet-native cash should be as simple and crude as cash, unchangeable. Once you start with auto-updates, governance voting, and frequent rule changes, it’s no longer cash anymore, but has become another centralized/semi-centralized/manipulable ‘digital bank account’.”