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

PANews reported on January 13th that, according to Protos, for the first time since May 2023, Bitcoin Core maintainers have increased the number of trusted keys with the authority to submit code to the Bitcoin Core main branch. On January 8th, 2026, developer TheCharlatan (also known as "sedited") joined as the sixth trusted key holder. In a group chat with other core contributors, at least 20 members agreed to grant TheCharlatan this authority, and no one objected to the wording of his nomination. He was described as having made outstanding contributions in key areas of the codebase, carefully considering the content released to users and developers, and possessing a deep understanding of the technical consensus process. TheCharlatan graduated from the University of Zurich with a degree in Computer Science, focusing on reproducible software construction and the development of Bitcoin Core verification logic.