The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, has always been a mystery in the world of cryptocurrency. Recently, one of Nakamoto’s early collaborators, Martti Malmi, disclosed his complete email correspondence with Nakamoto, which has become the most important addition to the “Nakamoto Files.” This article, written by Adam Cochran and translated by Foresight News, aims to explore the possible connection between Hal Finney and Nakamoto, based on the newly disclosed email records.
It has long been speculated that Hal Finney, a Bitcoin developer and pioneer, was one of the main individuals behind the pseudonym Nakamoto. In fact, Finney was the first person to receive Bitcoins through a transaction mechanism. On January 11, 2009, Nakamoto sent Finney 10 Bitcoins. Therefore, Finney has always been considered one of the most likely candidates to be Nakamoto. This article examines the newly disclosed email records to further explore the possible relationship between Finney and Nakamoto.
The email records reveal that in July 2009, Nakamoto had another job while Finney was working at the US encryption technology developer, PGP Corporation. During this time, Finney’s health deteriorated, and he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in August. The email records indicate that Nakamoto mentioned Finney’s busy schedule during this time.
Between March 7, 2010, and May 16, 2010, Nakamoto disappeared for a period of time, citing that he was busy with other things. This coincides with the period when PGP Corporation was acquired by Symantec in April 2010 and with Finney’s declining health.
In November 2010, after a period of relatively low contribution, Finney “picked up” his work on Bitcoin again. He became active on Bitcointalk, proposed faster Bitcoin signatures, and released these proposals a few months later.
On December 5, 2010, Nakamoto expressed concerns about WikiLeaks using Bitcoin, fearing retaliation. On December 11 and 12, we received Nakamoto’s final public messages about WikiLeaks stirring up trouble and being subjected to DDoS attacks.
On December 7, 2010, Nakamoto sent an email to all major contributors, requesting to list their names on the website. At the same time, he removed his own information from the website, indicating that he understood he would eventually exit, but he did not mention this to anyone.
During the period from 2010 to 2011, a large number of top Bitcoin holders’ wallets were created and never made any withdrawals (which would become significant in the future).
On February 22, 2011, Nakamoto sent his last email to Malmi, including a PGP signature to provide the website administrator’s password.
On April 26, 2011, Nakamoto sent his last known private email to Gavin Andresen, mentioning that he was “moving on to other things.” This was after Finney started contributing and participating in Bitcoin signature verification work.
Around September 2012, Finney began exploring the idea of Trusted Platform Modules (TPM). In March 2013, he submitted code about BFlick Bitcoin Flicker on GitHub and announced this message on March 17, 2013.
On March 19, 2013, Finney released a post titled “Bitcoin and Me,” in which he mentioned being diagnosed with ALS in 2009 and noticing his body weakening before that (around the same time Nakamoto disappeared in 2009). He stated that he was “forced to retire” in early 2011, which coincided with the time when Nakamoto handed over control of Bitcoin to others.
However, Finney left PGP Corporation when it was acquired by Symantec in April 2010, and according to available information, he did not have any other employer in early 2011. He was still writing code, such as BFlick, in 2013.
He also mentioned in this post that in 2010, when he “picked up” his work on Bitcoin, he moved most of his Bitcoins to an offline wallet to leave for his heirs. This explains the influx of funds into certain wallets from late 2010 to mid-2011, with little corresponding outflow, and why there were very few expenses.
Regarding Nakamoto’s original wallet, it is known from a post in 2012 that Finney’s first wallet address for receiving Bitcoin transactions was on an old computer.
In an interview in 2014, it was revealed that Finney’s condition deteriorated to the point where he could only answer yes or no questions. However, his former boss, Zimmerman, the founder of PGP, stated that Finney had actually contributed most of the content for PGP 2.0.
Zimmerman himself had almost been indicted for violating arms export control with his encryption tool, which may explain why Finney wanted to downplay his involvement. This also explains why Nakamoto was concerned about WikiLeaks and the controversies it faced, as he may have witnessed similar pressures faced by Zimmerman.
This interview took place about 20 days after the P2P Foundation account released the clarification message “I am not Dorian Nakamoto,” which could have been done by a family member as it did not require PGP keys to log in. Finney passed away in August 2014.
Interestingly, on April 18, 2009, Finney participated in a 10-mile running race, which ended at 9:18 Pacific Standard Time. During that time, Nakamoto sent emails and Bitcoins.
In the Bitcoin whitepaper and early emails sent to Adam Back, the summary of Bitcoin was written as “we propose.” It is often mentioned that certain parts of Bitcoin do not match Finney’s style and cover many subjects.
However, as seen from Nakamoto’s emails with other contributors, he often sought support and involvement from others, and all his communication was within the Pacific Standard Time zone. But some of his emails still used British Commonwealth spelling.
Although he used the word “cheque” in an email in 2010, he later had to ask Malmi about European payment methods. The UK being part of the EU/European Economic Area is something known to British people.
In 2009, he also mentioned “realize,” which is American/Canadian spelling, seemingly excluding Australia/UK.
However, by 2010, after his sudden return, he used “realise” again. Many English speakers around the world may mix American and British spellings, but they often stick to one style. Changing the spelling may suggest someone else’s operation or an attempt to hide one’s writing habits.
In conclusion, I believe that Finney and possibly other early contributors left Bitcoin in its early stages, but “most of Nakamoto is him.” By 2010, he knew he was dying, and the death of the “Bitcoin developer” would kill his beloved project. So Nakamoto disappeared, and Finney re-engaged, making as many contributions as possible despite his declining condition. He moved his Bitcoins to a cold wallet, leaving them for his children and future generations, and let others take on the responsibilities of Bitcoin, effectively becoming Nakamoto. He changed his writing style from the beginning, incorporating British references, but couldn’t hide his lack of understanding of the European Economic Area/EU in private conversations. Perhaps Dorian Nakamoto was an early contributor, and Bitcoins were sent to him while Finney was out running, or perhaps it was just a local name Finney chose and believed that Bitcoin would never reach such a scale.
Finney mentioned in his final post about Nakamoto:
It wasn’t until 2014 that we learned how important Finney’s role was in PGP 2.0. Even by comparing the code, many people wouldn’t guess how much of it was done by Finney.
BTC Maxi (Bitcoin maximalists) dislike the idea of Finney being Nakamoto because Finney had an open-minded attitude towards the future development of Bitcoin. He wanted it to be more environmentally friendly, supported forks, BitDNS, zerocoins, and used OP_PUSHDATA to support protocols above Bitcoin. This narrative doesn’t align with the never-changing Bitcoin Maxi story.
But Finney was a great dreamer and intelligent person who saw what it could become, not what it was at the time. While some people never want to know who Nakamoto is and believe it disrupts the “we are all Nakamoto” narrative, I disagree. I’m less interested if Nakamoto is an anonymous figure from a dead, captured, or closed government project. If he truly had foresight and humbly retired to let Bitcoin continue to exist, that’s fascinating to me. I believe the truth lies in the latter, and all of this is thanks to Finney. By stepping back, he made Bitcoin something that everyone could own collectively. He made everyone Nakamoto, and that small decision is something other pure proof-of-work currencies cannot replicate. That moment defined Bitcoin, not by handing it over to the next leader but by giving it a soul: the soul of a ghost who can never fully assimilate.
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