Professor Michael Kaplikov of Pace University has published three previously unseen emails exchanged between Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto and early developer Hal Finney. According to Kaplikov, the emails were obtained from Finney's widow, Fran Finney, through New York Times contributor Nathaniel Popper, and were verified as authentic from Finney's old computer.
The Emails: From Network Scale to Code Release
The first email, dated November 19, 2008 — just 19 days after the Bitcoin whitepaper was published — shows Finney asking Satoshi about the expected size of the P2P network: "How large do you envision it becoming? Tens of nodes? Thousands? Millions? And for clients, do you think this could scale to be usable for close to 100% of the world’s financial transactions?" Shortly after, Satoshi granted Finney commit access to the Sourceforge repository.
A second email from January 8, 2009, just after the network launched, reads: "Thought you’d like to know, the Bitcoin v0.1 release with EXE and full sourcecode is up on Sourceforge." Finney replied the next day, thanking Satoshi and saying he would look at the code over the weekend. On January 10, 2009, Finney famously tweeted: "Running bitcoin."
Timezone Puzzle: Was Satoshi in London?
Kaplikov noted that the January 2009 email timestamps appear to be about eight hours ahead of GMT. Recent research by Doncho Karaivanov of The Chain Bulletin, using scatter charts of all Satoshi's activity timestamps, suggests he may have lived in London. However, earlier studies placed him in California or on the U.S. East Coast. The new emails add another layer to the enduring mystery of Satoshi's identity and location during Bitcoin's creation.
Hal Finney's Legacy
Finney, who passed away from ALS on August 28, 2014, once said: "The computer can be used as a tool to liberate and protect people, rather than to control them." These newly published emails not only illuminate the early collaboration between Nakamoto and Finney but also deepen the enigma of Satoshi's true identity and whereabouts.