Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, completely disappeared from the public spotlight in December 2010. Hal Finney, for his part, died in 2014 after a long illness from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Finney’s physical disappearance has led to debate as to whether he and Nakamoto were the same person. However, Jameson Lopp, a famous Bitcoin popularizer, has presented evidence that he finds “impossible” that Satoshi and Finnety were the same person.
An analysis posted on his personal website on October 21 stated: Lop lists a number of pieces of evidence that support his point of viewand also mentioned that he would be “putting his reputation at risk” by stating that “they are not the same person.”
It is worth noting that Finney was the first Bitcoiner and the first after Satoshi to receive a Bitcoin transaction and make changes to the Bitcoin code. Hence the extensive debate about the connections between both identities.
Lopp explains that this was the case before 2010, when the first symptoms of ALS began to affect health Finney, who was a frequent marathon runner. At 8 a.m. UTC-8 on April 18, Finney was in the middle of a marathon while Satoshi was simultaneously responding to a series of emails to developer Mike Hearn. While it’s possible to speculate that Finney wasn’t at the marathon, there are photos from the event.
Write other code
There is broad and angry opinion among code developers Debate between those who use spaces to index code and those who use tab. There are even forums on the Internet where this is the case There is still cause for debate.
Another test presented by Lopp is the code writing model. Satoshi previously used space-indexed notation Finney used tabs.
Additionally, other details such as variable declarations using indentation, which Finney used and Satoshi did not, are included. show a clear difference in attitude towards writing code. While Finney was able to develop both models intentionally, it would be quite difficult to do so naturally within the developer niche.
Finney disease
While Finney died of ALS in 2014, Since 2010, he began to lose mobility in his extremities. Let’s remember that ALS is a degenerative disease that causes people to lose mobility in their bodies. One of the most famous ALS patients was the scientist Stephen Hawking.
In 2010, Finney was confined to a motorized wheelchair, ending his marathon running years. In addition, his wife Fran Finney reports that Hal saw that his writing skills were severely limited, from 120 words per minute to a maximum of 50. The woman describes this situation as a “challenge” for him.
This is an important point of comparison because while Finney began to suffer from the onslaught of illness, Satoshi was more active than ever and wrote a few long emails every daywhich was virtually impossible for Finney.
Lopp also presents evidence about connection IPs and different personality types that only an expert could maintain a completely different alterego.
The popularizer points out that it is Bitcoin “It is good that the identity of the creator of Bitcoin remains unknown” due to political problems that this could entail.
Hal Finney wasn’t the only one suspected. An example of this is Nick Szabo, a well-known cryptographer who also worked on Bitcoin and who is believed to be Satoshi. Mainly due to similarities in their pre-Bitcoin developments and a specific spelling. Even those like Craig Wright have described themselves as Satoshi, although they have not yet been able to prove this.