Bitcoin: Hal Finney Died 12 Years Ago, but His Legacy Is Bigger Than Ever

Twelve years after his death, Hal Finney remains an inseparable part of Bitcoin’s history. The cryptographer received the very first BTC transaction sent by Satoshi Nakamoto on January 12, 2009. Ten bitcoins to test a network that practically had no value yet. Today, those 10 BTC would be worth more than 800,000 dollars. And another question still refuses to disappear: Did Finney really know Satoshi’s identity?

In brief

Bitcoin owes him its first transaction

On January 12, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney. The network was then only a few days old. No exchange. No ETF. And not really any price either. Finney had downloaded the Bitcoin software very early and was exchanging directly with Satoshi on how it worked. He reported bugs and participated in the first tests.

Two days earlier, he had published a now-famous message: “Running Bitcoin.” At the time, nothing guaranteed that the project would survive more than a few weeks. However, Finney did not come out of nowhere.