Hal Finney is Satoshi Nakamoto. Here are my findings and explanations on to as why.
Many people speculate that either an individual no one has ever heard of or Nick Szabo created Bitcoin. One of the main priorities of Satoshi Nakamoto was to remain as anonymous as possible and he was absolutely on point with his OPSEC. If Nick Szabo created Bitcoin, he would know he’d be the first person suspected of creating Bitcoin due to his Bitgold research. Satoshi would never put himself into this position. I do think Nick Szabo is the biggest influencer of Bitcoin and without his Bitgold research, Bitcoin may have never existed. However, he is not Satoshi Nakamoto and had absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin at any point. Now that were past why Nick Szabo is not Satoshi, let’s get onto who is.
The man that is Satoshi Nakamoto is none other than Hal Finney. The man who was the first person to work on Bitcoin besides Satoshi and received the first ever Bitcoin transaction. While this will always be speculation, there is honestly no doubt in my mind, and it will probably leave not much doubt in your mind either.
Let’s start with the obvious.
Satoshi Nakamoto created the Bitcointalk Forum in December of 2009. Hal had been helping Satoshi with Bitcoin since January of 2009 (as emails indicate). Hal Finney registered on the Bitcointalk forum in November 2010. A full year after the creation of the forum. Why would Bitcoins biggest supporter, Hal Finney, wait one full year after the forum was created to register on it? Also, he registered two weeks before Satoshi Nakamotos final post on the forum. Coincidence? I doubt it. He knew he was retiring the Satoshi account and would no longer work on the project due to being diagnosed with ALS in October 2009. Yes, he was diagnosed with ALS two months before Satoshi disappeared.
Another interesting point some need to consider is that all timestamps on the forum point to Satoshi being a man in the western part of the United States in either California, Oregon, or Nevada. Hal Finney was in California. Which brings me to my next point. There was only one man in California named Satoshi Nakamoto. This man lived two streets over from Hal Finney. Let that sink in for a second. No, this man had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of Bitcoin. He’s not a computer programmer in any way. I don’t even believe Hal Finney and Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto even met. Hal Finney saw that Satoshi Nakamotos house was being foreclosed two streets away and thought it would be the ultimate symbol to the Bitcoin project and an example of banks mistreating people. A problem Bitcoin can solve. That, and he had a cool name.
Another point to be made here and another piece of compelling evidence is that Satoshi Nakamoto presumably mined blocks 1-77 of Bitcoin, Hal mined block 78, and Satoshi mined blocks 79-125. Hal claims to have mined Block 78 but not blocks 72-77. However, blocks 72-78 were more than likely (in my opinion, 95%) mined on the same extraNonce slope by the same person. If you do not know what an extraNonce slope is, please click the link below for reference:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/payment-no-1-a-closer-look-at-the-very-first-bitcoin-transfer-2346992People will always point to the email conversations between Satoshi Nakamoto and Hal Finney in January 2009 and onwards. Those mean absolutely nothing. Hal Finney was a very intelligent man and thought literally every detail about his project through. He was more than likely scared of past digital currency founders and operators getting arrested without technically breaking the law. Please google Liberty Dollar and/or Liberty Currency. This and Hal thought Bitcoin would succeed more so without a face and creator. Although I think it more has to do with the legal aspect. So Hal knew he had to have a fictional character create Bitcoin to avoid any issues. Now why Email himself? Easy. 1) He knew he would be one of the first people suspected of creating Bitcoin and wanted an Alibi. 2) He probably eventually wanted to work on the project himself and retire Satoshi. Mostly, #1. And no, E-Mailing himself does not mean he had multiple personality disorder in any way. It just means he carefully planned his alibi from the start of the project.
Another point is Hal Finney received the first ever Bitcoin Transaction. This is not hard evidence by any means but if I’m working on a project like Bitcoin, I’m sending myself the first ever transaction to see if it works.
This one is purely speculation but I thought I’d add it in. Hal and Satoshi both had @gmx email addresses as one of the emails they used. Not a super common email service (at least to my knowledge).
Another piece, Hal Finney Article on Double Spending:
http://nakamotoinstitute.org/detecting-double-spending/There you have my findings and thoughts on Hal Finney being Satoshi Nakamoto. This is obviously only speculation on my part but there is not much doubt in my own mind that Hal and Satoshi are the same person.
Hal Finney created Bitcoin.
I will be creating a video on this, basically saying what I have said in this post. I will post the link in the first post when I do make it.
Really interesting theory, do you know that Hal Finney was cryopreserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation? (source wikipedia)
I think it's very notable that he chose not to be buried, maybe he want to rise againg from 200 years from now when the world economy will be based on Bitcoin