Original Block unicorn Block unicorn May 18, 2025 23:19 Chongqing Article by: Token Dispatch and Thejaswini M A
Article compiled by: Block unicorn
Preface
“Running Bitcoin,” the tweet read. Simple and straightforward, just a few words, posted on January 11, 2009. Behind this short message was Hal Finney, who became the recipient of the first Bitcoin transaction in history: just a day later, Satoshi sent him 10 BTC directly.
While debates over Satoshi's identity rage, one fact is indisputable: without Hal Finney, Bitcoin might have remained an obscure white paper rather than the financial revolution we know today.
Although he passed away in 2014 due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), his legacy continues to shape the evolution of cryptocurrency.
From his early work in privacy software to his final contributions made through eye-tracking technology after becoming paralyzed, Finney's life seems like a blueprint for the cyberpunk values embedded in Bitcoin's DNA.
From Kolinga to Cypherpunk
Harold Thomas Finney II was born on May 4, 1956, in Colinga, California, showing an early aptitude for mathematics and computing. After earning an engineering degree from Caltech in 1979, he began his career in the video game industry.
At Mattel Electronics, Finney developed several well-known console games, including (Adventure), (Armored Attack), and (Space Attack).
Finney's career trajectory and the development of digital currency itself cannot be separated from the context of the cypherpunk movement that emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Cypherpunks are a loosely organized collective of privacy advocates, cryptographers, and libertarian technologists who believe that strong cryptography can protect civil liberties from government intrusion and reshape society. The foundational text of the movement, Timothy May's (The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto), asserts that cryptographic technology will fundamentally change the nature of government regulation and taxation.
Finney found his intellectual home among these digital revolutionaries. The cypherpunk mailing list, established in 1992, became an important platform for discussing revolutionary ideas around privacy, anonymity, and freedom in the digital age.
By the early 1990s, Finney had joined PGP Corporation, working with cryptography pioneer Phil Zimmermann to develop “Pretty Good Privacy” (PGP), an encryption software designed to protect email communications from surveillance. This was not only technical work but also political activism, as the U.S. government at the time classified strong encryption technologies as munitions, restricting their export and subjecting them to the same regulations as weapons.
Finney operated two of the earliest cryptographic anonymous remailer systems, allowing people to send emails without revealing their identities. This was radical technology in the early 1990s, embodying the cypherpunk motto: “Cypherpunks write code.”
Digital Cash Experiment
Finney's focus on privacy naturally led him to an interest in digital currency.
For cypherpunks, this connection is evident: in an increasingly monitored world, financial privacy represents one of the last frontiers of individual freedom.
This interest was not unique. Cypherpunks like David Chaum, Adam Back, Wei Dai, and Nick Szabo proposed various digital cash systems in the 1990s. Finney carefully studied their work and engaged in extensive correspondence with Wei Dai and Szabo.
In 2004, Finney created his own digital currency system called reusable proof of work (RPOW).
Based on Adam Back's Hashcash concept, RPOW aimed to address the “double spending problem” through a unique method: tokens that can only be used once, preventing the same digital currency from being used multiple times.
The system creates RPOW tokens by allowing clients to provide a proof-of-work string of a given difficulty (signed with their private key).
Tokens would then be registered on the server to that signature key. Users can transfer tokens by signing a transfer order to another public key, and the server will update the registration accordingly.
To solve security issues, RPOW used the IBM 4758 secure cryptographic coprocessor, making the server more trustworthy than traditional systems. Although RPOW was never widely adopted, it represented a key step towards Bitcoin, showcasing Finney's deep understanding of how to create digital scarcity.
When a mysterious figure named Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper titled (Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System) to a cryptography mailing list in October 2008, most readers dismissed it. Cryptographers had seen too many grand plans from “clueless newcomers” before.
But Hal Finney saw something different.
The first user of Bitcoin
“I believe I am the first person to run Bitcoin, aside from Satoshi Nakamoto,” Finney later recalled. “I mined the 70th block or so, and I was the recipient of the first Bitcoin transaction when Satoshi sent me ten bitcoins as a test.”
This transaction in January 2009 — the 10 BTC Satoshi sent to Finney — has become legendary in cryptocurrency lore, marking the transition of Bitcoin from theory to a functional system.
In response to the Bitcoin white paper, Finney wrote:
“Bitcoin seems like a very promising idea. I also think that a form of non-falsifiable tokens, if its production rate is predictable and unaffected by corrupting parties, could have potential value.”
In the following days, Finney communicated with Satoshi via email, reporting vulnerabilities and suggesting fixes. Unlike many cryptographers, he recognized Bitcoin's potential early on.
His enthusiasm was not blind optimism. In a now-famous post from 2009, he wrote:
“Think about how to reduce the carbon emissions associated with the widespread implementation of Bitcoin.”
This suggests he had begun to consider the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining.
According to his rough calculations, each Bitcoin could be worth 10 million dollars. At the time, Bitcoin was worth just a few cents, and this prediction seemed ludicrous. Today, Bitcoin prices hover around 100,000 dollars, making this prediction increasingly prescient.
Tragic Diagnosis and Lasting Legacy
2009 was both a triumph and a tragedy for Finney. While exploring the potential of Bitcoin, he received devastating news: he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the same disease that plagued Stephen Hawking.
ALS leads to the degeneration of motor neurons, ultimately causing patients to lose the ability to walk, speak, or breathe independently. Typically, the time from diagnosis to death is two to five years.
However, even as his body gradually deteriorated in the last years of his life, Finney's mind remained sharp, and his spirit undaunted.
He continued to contribute to the development of Bitcoin and learned to program using eye-tracking software during his paralysis. By his own estimates, his programming speed was about 50 times slower than before he fell ill.
Finney even developed software that enabled him to control a mechanical wheelchair through eye movements — proving his innovative problem-solving abilities even under severe physical limitations.
On August 28, 2014, 58-year-old Hal Finney passed away due to complications from ALS. According to his wishes, his body was cryogenically frozen at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona, representing his final optimistic expression of technology's potential to overcome human limitations.
Connection to Satoshi Nakamoto
Discussing Hal Finney inevitably involves speculation about whether he might be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Finney lived in Temple City, California, next to a Japanese American named Dorian Nakamoto.
Some speculate that Finney may have borrowed his neighbor's name as a pseudonym.
He possessed technical skills, philosophical positions, and writing styles consistent with those of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared from public view in April 2011, roughly coinciding with the deterioration of Finney's health.
Finney always denied being Satoshi Nakamoto, and evidence suggests that they are different individuals.
Moreover, the Bitcoin private keys controlled by Satoshi Nakamoto have remained unused since his disappearance, making it less likely that Finney could have accessed these keys.
Finney's wife, Fran, offered a compelling rebuttal, insisting that her husband was not Satoshi Nakamoto. Given Finney's candidness about his involvement in Bitcoin and his deteriorating health, he seemed to have no reason to continue such a deception.
Regardless of whether he is Satoshi Nakamoto, Finney's contributions to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are monumental in their own right.
Since Finney's death, his legacy has continued in various forms of tribute within the cryptocurrency field.
His wife, Fran Finney, founded the annual “Bitcoin Running Challenge” to raise funds for ALS research, drawing inspiration from Finney's iconic 2009 tweet.
The event invites participants to run, walk, or roll any distance while raising funds for the ALS Association.
The “Running Bitcoin Challenge” has become a significant event on the crypto community calendar. In 2023, the challenge raised over $50,000 for ALS research, and the 2024 event surpassed that figure, highlighting the ongoing respect Finney has garnered.
Fran also took over Hal's Twitter account, sharing stories and responding to the ongoing gratitude from the crypto community, keeping his memory alive.
The date the SEC approved Bitcoin's first spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) coincided precisely with the date of Finney's historic tweet 15 years later, on January 11, 2024.
Our perspective
For many in the cryptocurrency field, Finney represents an ideal: a talented technologist who combined technical expertise with ethical principles, remained optimistic despite personal tragedy, and viewed technology as a tool for achieving human freedom.
While Satoshi Nakamoto remains shrouded in mystery, Finney serves as the human face of Bitcoin, reminding us that behind the code and cryptography, cryptocurrency is ultimately about people and their desire for a better world.
Hal Finney's story forces us to confront some unsettling questions: what do we truly value in the cryptocurrency field?
While the cryptocurrency industry celebrates wealth creation and technological disruption, Finney's legacy challenges us to think about a more fundamental question: what are all these innovations really for?
A movement originally aimed at protecting personal freedom through mathematics has sometimes evolved into a form resembling the financial system it sought to replace — centralized, extractive, and often opaque.
Finney's approach to technology seemed straightforward: build tools that expand human freedom. Not freedom as an abstract political concept, but actual, daily freedoms – to communicate without surveillance, to trade without permission, to retain ownership of one's personal digital identity.
His life demonstrated the power of personal integrity in technological development. Unlike many who compromise their principles for market demands, Finney maintained a remarkable consistency between his values and his work. From PGP to RPOW to Bitcoin, each project represented another step toward the same goal: enhancing individual autonomy through cryptography.
The industry should ask itself: do the systems we build align with Hal Finney's vision and help advance the cypherpunk ethos? Or have we lost sight of the original revolutionary direction in our pursuit of the next price surge?
