Bitcoin Core welcomes its sixth core code maintainer in three years: TheCharlatan

According to Protos, the Bitcoin Core development team added a new Trusted Key holder with main branch commit permissions on January 8, 2026. The developer, using the pseudonym TheCharlatan (also known as "sedited"), became the sixth core maintainer. This marks the first time since May 2023 that Bitcoin Core has expanded the number of Trusted Key holders with code commit permissions. With TheCharlatan's addition, the existing core maintainer team includes Marco Falke, Gloria Zhao, Ryan Ofsky, Hennadii Stepanov, Ava Chow, and TheCharlatan. TheCharlatan, a graduate of the University of Zurich with a degree in Computer Science from South Africa, primarily focuses on reproducible builds and the verification logic of Bitcoin Core.