Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
On January 8, 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 with Trusted Keys are: 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 individuals have been granted this privilege, highlighting its significance and the strict selection process.
Bitcoin Core Core Maintainers: The "Editors" of Bitcoin Developers
Bitcoin Core is currently the main development and maintenance team for the Bitcoin mainnet, responsible for writing, maintaining, testing, and releasing the majority of full node software, as well as supporting tools and documentation. Bitcoin Core operates on a non-profit basis, primarily funded by external companies.
The Bitcoin Core development team consists of 41 members who contribute the vast majority of the code for the project. Among them, only 6 developers have been granted the title of "core maintainer"—the only 6 individuals in the world authorized to merge code into Bitcoin Core and sign the released program files (binaries).
Signatures of the 6 core maintainers
In analogy, Bitcoin Core core maintainers are like the "editors" of Bitcoin network developers; anyone can contribute code and submit PRs to the codebase, but only core maintainers have the authority to merge code into the official repository and sign releases, similar to how an editor reviews submissions and decides whether a developer's code is accepted for publication or sent back for revision.
The signatures of Bitcoin Core core maintainers ensure security, allowing all nodes and users to trust that this is an "official, unaltered" release. However, Bitcoin Core core maintainers do not have the power to directly trigger changes to on-chain rules. For example, while Bitcoin Core core maintainers may sign and release program files for soft forks or hard forks of the Bitcoin network, whether the upgrade is successful ultimately depends on the acceptance and consensus of users and miners, not solely on the signatures of Bitcoin Core core maintainers.
When Bitcoin was first created, Satoshi Nakamoto was the only core maintainer, having the sole authority to change the core codebase. Later, Satoshi passed this privilege to Gavin Andresen, and then to Wladimir van der Laan, meaning that for a long time, the power to maintain/change the Bitcoin network code was in the hands of one person. It wasn't until 2022, when Wladimir van der Laan stepped down and became embroiled in a lawsuit with Craig Wright (who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto), that this power began to decentralize.
Even so, Bitcoin Core core maintainers remain an important role, and those who become core maintainers typically have a high level of trust and reputation within the community or have made significant contributions to the Bitcoin network.
For instance, Ava Chow, one of the core maintainers, is a transgender female developer who, in 2024, rejected a PR from Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr that aimed to restrict Ordinals transactions at the consensus level, citing "lack of consensus and creating noise," thus preventing a potential severe consensus split in the Bitcoin network and becoming an unsung hero.
Ava Chow attended the Bitcoin 2024 event.
For introductions and contributions of other core maintainers, please refer to the previous article (Related reading: Who is Guarding Satoshi's Legacy? A Look at the 41-Person Legion Behind Bitcoin's Trillion-Dollar Market Value) Next, we will introduce why TheCharlatan was able to become the sixth core maintainer.
TheCharlatan: A Decade of Experience in Crypto Development
TheCharlatan graduated from the University of Zurich with a degree in computer science, is South African, and focuses on reproducibility and the validation logic of Bitcoin Core. In a blog post in 2024, he claimed to have been developing this project for over two years. TheCharlatan's work systematically breaks down, organizes, and modularizes the validation logic of Bitcoin Core, allowing other users to reuse it safely.
TheCharlatan
TheCharlatan is well-liked among Bitcoin Core core developers, and during the process of promoting him to core maintainer, at least 20 members expressed their agreement. Glozow praised him during the nomination, stating: "He is a reliable reviewer with extensive work experience in critical areas of the codebase, thoughtfully considering the content we deliver to users and developers, and has a deep understanding of the technical consensus process."
Content from the Bitcoin Core core developer group chat (translated)
According to his Github account information, TheCharlatan first engaged in crypto development in 2015, developing a cryptocurrency price display tool, which is a simple Linux desktop widget with a built-in price alert feature that triggers when a set threshold is reached. After 2017, his crypto development activities became more frequent, and he officially began contributing code to Bitcoin Core in 2018, so it can be inferred that TheCharlatan first encountered Bitcoin Core about 8 years ago, making him quite experienced.
It is also worth noting that from 2021 to 2022, TheCharlatan contributed to the codebase of a Farcaster project, which allows people to exchange Bitcoin and Monero with anyone running a Farcaster node in a peer-to-peer manner.
TheCharlatan indeed has a fondness for Monero; he researched in 2020 the destruction issues that could arise from transferring Monero using hardware wallets and explored the time lock vulnerabilities of Monero.
Of course, true tech geeks can sometimes be hard to decipher. TheCharlatan often retweets other technical tweets on the X platform but rarely expresses his own opinions (in May 2025, he tweeted that he dislikes NFTs even more). However, starting in June 2025, he has been repeating a tweet every month that says, "Cash on the internet. No auto-updates."
I fear this might be some kind of secret code among Bitcoin tech geeks or a cultural slogan I am unaware of, so I asked AI to help me explain the meaning of these two sentences. AI said that these two sentences actually express a very extreme Bitcoin fundamentalist viewpoint:
"True internet-native cash should be as simple, straightforward, and immutable as cash. Once you start implementing automatic upgrades, governance voting, and frequently changing rules, it is no longer cash; it becomes another centralized/partially centralized/manipulable 'digital bank account.'"
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