Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney was competing in a 10-mile race at the exact time Satoshi Nakamoto was responding to emails and transacting on Bitcoin, newly surfaced evidence has revealed.
For years, it has been commonly speculated that the late Hal Finney, a computer scientist, was the creator of Bitcoin. He was the first person besides Satoshi to download and run Bitcoin’s software and was the first recipient of Bitcoin. Finney, however, denied the theory until his passing in 2014.
Jameson Lopp, a self-proclaimed cypherpunk and co-founder of Bitcoin custody fi Casa, doesn’t believe the speculation either. In an Oct. 21 blog post, Lopp shared new evidence that casts further doubt on the theory.
Racing to send an email
Lopp’s key evidence revolves around a 10-mile race in Santa Barbara, California on Saturday, April 18, 2009.
According to the race data, Finney competed in the “Santa Barbara Running Company Chardonnay 10 Miler & 5K,” starting at 8 am Pacific time and finishing the race at 78 minutes.
The race, however, coincides with timestamped emails between Satoshi and one of the first Bitcoin developers, Mike Hearn.
Hal Finney was a legendary Cypherpunk, but he was not Satoshi.
Today I present my research to support that claim.https://t.co/gZVQv3QW0B— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) October 21, 2023
“It turns out that early Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn was emailing back and forth with Satoshi during this time,” explained Lopp, referring to archived emails that Hearn had released publicly in the past.
“What can we determine from all of this? Satoshi sent the email to Mike at 9:16 AM Pacific time – 2 minutes before Hal crossed the finish line.”
“For the hour and 18 minutes that Hal was running, we can be quite sure that he was not interacting with a computer,” Lopp added.
The Bitcoin transaction
Meanwhile, Lopp highlighted on-chain data which further supports his claim.
Hearn’s emails with Nakamoto show that Nakamoto sent Hearn 32.5 BTC in one particular transaction.
Lopp pointed to this transaction that took place on block 11,408, which was mined at 8:55 am California time — 55 minutes into Finney’s race.
Nakamoto confirmed this transaction — in addition to another one involving 50 BTC — in the 6:16 pm email, which Lopp iterates took place while Finney was still running.
Health issues
Meanwhile, analysis has also highlighted that Satoshi was working on code and…
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