Co-founder and CTO Casa Jameson Lopp привел arguments against the theory that Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney was the creator of the first cryptocurrency Satoshi Nakamoto.
In his blog he recounted the Santa Barbara, California, USA, race on 18 April 2009. In it участвовал Finney. He started at 8:00 local time and finished about 78 minutes later.
Lopp’s version rests on the claim that Finney could not interact with a computer at that time. To corroborate the Bitcoin pioneer’s participation in the race, he attaches a photo of the latter — the number on his T-shirt matches the archival data.
Lopp cites the correspondence between Satoshi and former Bitcoin Core developer Mike Hearn, published by the latter. The Bitcoin creator sent one of the letters on 18 April 2009 at 18:16.
According to the investigation, Hearn’s IP address at the time belonged to a Swiss Internet provider. He could have been working from a Google office in Zurich. Thus, in California at the time the letter was sent it was 9:16 — Finney could not have done this, as he had not yet crossed the finish line.
As additional argument, Lopp cites the publication by Hal’s wife about attending the Singularity Summit in San Francisco on 14-15 August 2010. In the post she explains that Finney could barely type due to diagnosed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. At the same time, Satoshi was actively online.
“Undoubtedly, some will argue that the presented arguments do not conclusively prove that Hal is not Satoshi. Indeed, proving a negation is often impossible. But I believe that the accumulation of facts creates so much doubt that a reasonable person would conclude: most likely, Satoshi is someone else”, — wrote Lopp.
According to him, after several months of investigation he said he was prepared to stake his reputation on this assertion.
In September 2021, in Budapest, Hungary установили a statue of Satoshi Nakamoto.
In September 2023, Web3-project built on the network of the first cryptocurrency, Trust Machines опубликовал видео from 25 years ago, in which Finney explains the essence доказательств с нулевым разглашением.