Wrote to or replied to

Hal Finney

Also appears as Hal, hal.finney, hal.finney@gmail.com

Hal Finney was a cypherpunk, a major PGP contributor and the creator of RPOW, a reusable proof-of-work token system that came before Bitcoin. He replied on the Cryptography whitepaper thread in November 2008, received early Bitcoin builds, and on 12 January 2009 received the first bitcoin transaction in block 170. His published emails with Satoshi cover crashes, debug builds and the strange excitement of a network with almost no users.

In the years that followed, Finney remained a respected figure in cryptography and Bitcoin culture even as he lived publicly with ALS. He continued to write and to be cited as someone who had both built prior proof-of-work cash ideas and helped midwife Bitcoin's first weeks. He died in August 2014.

Memorial writing often stresses that early testers mattered as much as whitepapers: without people willing to compile broken clients and report what failed, the network would have stayed a PDF. He remains one of the clearest bridges between 1990s cypherpunk cash ideas and Bitcoin's first weeks. This archive quotes his forum and email presence with care. It does not speculate about Satoshi's identity, even though Finney's name often appears in that guesswork.

Remembering him accurately matters more than using him as a clue.

Did Satoshi Nakamoto talk to Hal Finney?

Yes. This archive has 15 published emails, and 8 forum posts that quote or address them from Satoshi involving Hal Finney, dated from 9 November 2008 to 10 January 2011.

15 published emails · 8 replies · 1 posts immediately after them in a thread · mentioned in 3 · 9 November 2008 to 10 January 2011

Sources

Hal Finney on Bitcoin Takeover

In this archive (27)

Forum or list reply · Cryptography mailing list (metzdowd)

Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper
9 November 2008, 01:58 UTC
Forum or list reply · Cryptography mailing list (metzdowd)

Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper
14 November 2008, 18:55 UTC
Mentioned · Private email (Wei Dai)

Re: Citation of your b-money page
10 January 2009, 11:17 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

RE:Crash in bitcoin 0.1.0
10 January 2009, 11:52 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: Crash in bitcoin 0.1.0
10 January 2009, 14:59 (time as published; timezone not given)
Mentioned · Private email (Adam Back)

Re: Citation of your Hashcash paper
10 January 2009, 18:46 UTC
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: Crash in bitcoin 0.1.0
10 January 2009, 18:55 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: Crash in bitcoin 0.1.0
10 January 2009, 19:11 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

How's v0.1.2 going?
11 January 2009, 16:36 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

v0.1.2 gcc debug build attached
11 January 2009, 16:49 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: v0.1.2 debug.log
11 January 2009, 17:25 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

select failed 10038 fix
11 January 2009, 21:31 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: select failed 10038 fix
12 January 2009, 08:41 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: select failed 10038 fix
12 January 2009, 10:50 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: v0.1.3 msvc debug build
12 January 2009, 11:26 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: v0.1.3 gcc debug build
12 January 2009, 11:39 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: select failed 10038 fix
12 January 2009, 23:59 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: disk full
13 January 2009, 14:42 (time as published; timezone not given)
Published email · Private email (Hal Finney)

Re: disk full
24 January 2009, 16:47 (time as published; timezone not given)
Forum or list reply · Cryptography mailing list (metzdowd)

Bitcoin v0.1 released
25 January 2009, 15:47 UTC
Forum or list reply · Private email (Dustin Trammell)

Re: Bitcoin v0.1 released
25 January 2009, 15:47 UTC
Forum or list reply · bitcoin-list (SourceForge)

Re: [bitcoin-list] Bitcoin v0.1.5 released
4 March 2009, 16:59 UTC
Forum or list reply · BitcoinTalk

Re: Version 0.3.18
9 December 2010, 14:37 UTC
Forum or list reply · BitcoinTalk

Re: BitDNS and Generalizing Bitcoin
10 December 2010, 19:55 UTC
Posted next in the thread · BitcoinTalk

Re: BitDNS and Generalizing Bitcoin
10 December 2010, 20:19 UTC
Forum or list reply · BitcoinTalk

Re: minimalistic bitcoin client on D language?
11 December 2010, 22:07 UTC
Mentioned · Private email (Mike Hearn)

More BitCoin questions
10 January 2011, 20:47 (time as published; timezone not given)

All people in the archive · Satoshi-era timeline