Bitcoin Core maintainers have commit permissions to the repository and are responsible for merging contributions from other developers onto the codebase.

Zhao achieved the Bitcoin Core maintainer status on Thursday as her pull request (PR) to add her PGP key fingerprint into the trusted keys file was accepted by the developer community and merged by now-fellow maintainer Marco Falke.

Zhao’s addition to the group came on the same day as long-time maintainer Pieter Wuille stepped down from the role. Wuille is one of the most well-known developers in the Bitcoin community, and has contributed immensely to the Bitcoin ecosystem and particularly to Bitcoin Core.