October 17, 2024
Hal Finney couldn’t possibly be Satoshi Nakamoto, new analysis suggests

Newly surfaced evidence shows that Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney was running a 10-mile race at the same time that Satoshi Nakamoto was answering emails and making Bitcoin transactions.

For years, there has been widespread speculation that the late computer scientist Hal Finney was the creator of Bitcoin. He was the first person other than Satoshi Nakamoto to download and run the Bitcoin software and the first recipient of Bitcoin. However, Finney continued to deny this theory until his death in 2014.

Jameson Lopp, a self-proclaimed cypherpunk and co-founder of Bitcoin hosting fi Casa, doesn’t believe this speculation either. Lopp in a blog post on October 21 shared New evidence casts further doubt on this theory.

Race to send emails

Lopp’s key evidence centered around a 10-mile race on Saturday, April 18, 2009, in Santa Barbara, California.

According to race data, Finney participated in the “Santa Barbara Running Company Chardonnay 10 Miler & 5K” race, which started at 8 a.m. Pacific time and ended in 78 minutes.

However, the race coincided with a time-stamped email exchange between Satoshi Nakamoto and Mike Hearn, one of the earliest Bitcoin developers.

“It turns out that Mike Hearn, an early Bitcoin developer, was emailing back and forth with Satoshi Nakamoto during this time,” Lopp explained, referring to archived emails that Hearn has released publicly in the past.

“What can we know for sure from all this? Satoshi emailed Mike at 9:16 AM Pacific Time, 2 minutes before Hal crossed the finish line.”

“During the 1 hour and 18 minutes that Hal ran, we were pretty sure he didn’t interact with the computer,” Lopp added.

Photo of Hal Finney competing in the 10-mile race on April 18. Source: PhotoCrazy

Bitcoin trading

Meanwhile, Lopp highlighted on-chain data, which further supports his claims.

Emails between Hearn and Satoshi Nakamoto show that Satoshi sent Hearn 32.5 BTC in one specific transaction.

Lopp noted that the transaction occurred in block 11,408, which was mined at 8:55 a.m. California time – 55 minutes after the start of the Finney game.

Satoshi confirmed the transaction in an email at 6:16 p.m., along with another transaction involving 50 BTC, which Lopp reiterated occurred while Finney was still running.

health problems

At the same time, the analysis also highlights that Satoshi was writing code and posting on various forums at a time when Hal Finney’s battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) had affected his ability to use a keyboard. Post.

Lopp cited an Aug. 22, 2010, post by Fran Finney, Hal Finney’s ex-wife, who said the couple attended the 2010 Singularity Summit in San Francisco on Aug. 14-15. Finney A grueling battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) slowed his typing speed. Fast” 120 words per minute to “slow finger pecks”.

Lopp said that between August 14 and 15, 2010, Satoshi performed four code check-ins and published 17 posts on various forums.

Lopp also noted some differences between Finney’s reusable proof-of-work code and the original Bitcoin client code.

related: Bitcoin Pioneer Hal Finney Talks ZK Proofs in Unearthed Video 25 Years Ago

However, Lopp also admitted that there may be objections to the so-called evidence.

Hearn released the emails in 2017 (seven years after the fact) after other Bitcoin enthusiasts lost trust in him over disagreements over how to scale Bitcoin.

Lopp said Finney could also have scripted emails and transactions ahead of time, or there could be more than one Satoshi.

However, Lopp believes that the creation of Bitcoin came from one developer:

“In all the time I’ve spent researching Satoshi Nakamoto, I haven’t found any evidence that it was a group. If it was a group, then they would all operate on the same sleep schedule, in code commits, emails, and forum posts. Remain consistent.”

Hal Finney sadly passed away in August 2014 due to complications from ALS.

Magazine: The big question: Did the NSA create Bitcoin?