Previously unseen emails between Blockstream CEO Adam Back and the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, entered the public record this week. The correspondence dates back to the months leading up to the launch of the pioneering cryptocurrency in 2009.
The emails were revealed as part of Back’s testimony in an ongoing UK lawsuit between the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and Craig Steven Wright. Wright has controversially claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto himself – a claim the lawsuit aims to disprove.
The early emails show Satoshi reaching out to Back in 2008 to confirm the proper citation of Back’s earlier “Hashcash” paper in Satoshi’s upcoming Bitcoin whitepaper. This demonstrates Satoshi’s intention to leverage concepts from Hashcash like hash-based proof-of-work for the Bitcoin protocol.
Additional emails show Satoshi sharing drafts of the Bitcoin whitepaper with Back prior to its public release and asking for feedback. Satoshi also informed Back when the open-source Bitcoin software was launched in January 2009.
The correspondence helps debunk theories that Adam Back himself secretly created Bitcoin. In his testimony, Back stated that his conversations with Satoshi were not extensive and that he did not contribute directly to Bitcoin’s initial development.
15 years after Bitcoin’s launch, Satoshi Nakamoto remains as mysterious a figure as ever. The new emails provide a glimpse into Bitcoin’s formative days but shed little light on the true identity behind the famous pseudonym. Other popular theories as to Satoshi’s identity, like the late cryptographer Hal Finney being the mastermind, lack hard evidence. For now, at least, it seems that the genesis of Bitcoin remains shrouded in some degree of secrecy.