The revelations of the last four months surrounding Craig Steven Wright – who claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin – have shed perhaps a new light on the early beginnings of Bitcoin. When Wright first made his claims, he implicated his deceased friend David Kleiman as co-founder of Bitcoin.
If this is true, when paired with Hal Finney, then the two disabled men would have played an instrumental role in changing the future of banking systems – and, indeed – many systems that make up our way of life today.
When Wired and Gizmodo first broke Wright’s identity, and his claims regarding the beginning of Bitcoin, the latter publication focused in on Kleiman, who has a litany of certifications in cyber-security.
He had suffered a motorcycle accident that left him handicapped. Oftentimes, when people tried to analyze the writing of Satoshi Nakamoto, they would note how it seemed, sometimes, the writing style changed. If Kleiman indeed played an early role, then two of the earliest Bitcoiner – he and Hal Finney – would have both been wheelchair-bound.
After his accident, Kleinman’s dedication to computers grew, and he became an elite specialist. He contributed to many of the same mailing lists Satoshi Nakamoto did. While his friend’s doubt that Kleiman helped invent Bitcoin, they admit he certainly had the skills to do so.
Hal Finney, who lived far from Kleiman’s Palm Beach County residence in Los Angeles, California, received the first ever Bitcoin sent from Satoshi Nakamoto as a test. Long before receiving that, he was a respected figure in the cryptography community. He ran the first cryptographically secured anonymous mailer in the 1990s. Hal explained his situation on BitcoinTalk:
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When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/disabled-men-bitcoin-finance/