In a revelation that could reshape the longstanding speculations surrounding Bitcoin’s mysterious origin, recent findings suggest that Hal Finney, an early Bitcoin pioneer, was actively participating in a 10-mile race precisely when Satoshi Nakamoto was engaged in email correspondence and conducting Bitcoin transactions.
For years, it had been a popular conjecture that Hal Finney, a distinguished computer scientist, was the enigmatic creator of Bitcoin, although he vehemently denied these allegations until his passing in 2014.
Jameson Lopp, a self-proclaimed cypherpunk and co-founder of Bitcoin custody firm Casa, has added fresh doubt to this prevailing theory. In a blog post dated October 21, Lopp revealed compelling evidence that casts a shadow of skepticism on Finney’s purported connection to Bitcoin’s inception.
Racing Against the Clock
Lopp’s central piece of evidence revolves around a 10-mile race that took place in Santa Barbara, California on April 18, 2009. Race data documents indicate that Finney participated in the “Santa Barbara Running Company Chardonnay 10 Miler & 5K,” commencing at 8 am Pacific time and completing the race in 78 minutes.
Strikingly, this race corresponds precisely with the timestamped emails exchanged between Satoshi and one of the earliest Bitcoin developers, Mike Hearn.
Lopp emphasized, “It turns out that early Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn was emailing back and forth with Satoshi during this time,” referring to archived emails previously disclosed by Hearn. “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,” Lopp added. “For the hour and 18 minutes that Hal was running, we can be quite sure that he was not interacting with a computer.”
The Bitcoin Transaction
Lopp also highlighted on-chain data that corroborates his argument. Hearn’s email correspondence with Nakamoto revealed that Nakamoto had sent Hearn 32.5 BTC in a specific transaction. Lopp pinpointed this transaction’s occurrence at block 11,408, mined at 8:55 am California time—merely 55 minutes into Finney’s race.
Remarkably, Nakamoto confirmed this transaction and another one involving 50 BTC in a 6:16 pm email, which Lopp asserts transpired while Finney was still engaged in the race.
Health Considerations
Furthermore, Lopp’s analysis underlined that Satoshi Nakamoto was actively involved in coding and forum postings during a period when Hal Finney’s battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) had substantially impaired his keyboard usage.
Lopp referenced a post from Finney’s former spouse, Fran Finney, dated August 22, 2010, indicating that during their attendance at the 2010 Singularity Summit on August 14-15, Hal Finney’s battle with ALS had reduced his typing speed from a brisk “120 words per minute” to a “sluggish finger peck.”
During this same period, Nakamoto had undertaken four code check-ins and composed 17 forum posts between August 14-15, 2010, as per Lopp’s findings. Additionally, Lopp noted substantial distinctions between Finney’s Reusable Proofs of Work code and the original Bitcoin client code.
Nonetheless, Lopp acknowledged that objections to this emerging evidence might arise. Hearn had released the emails seven years after the fact, at a time when he had fallen out of favor with the Bitcoin community due to disputes over scalability.
Additionally, the possibility that Finney had scripted the emails and transactions in advance or that multiple individuals adopted the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto was not entirely ruled out by Lopp.
Nonetheless, Lopp remains steadfast in his belief that the creation of Bitcoin was the work of a solitary developer. Hal Finney, unfortunately, passed away in August 2014 due to complications associated with ALS, leaving the enigma of Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity shrouded in mystery.