The crypto sphere has received a treasure trove of early correspondence between Blockstream CEO Adam Back and pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto in the months leading up to the birth of the industry’s benchmark cryptocurrency.
The Emails
In an effort to prove that Australian computer scientist Craig Steven Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, as he controversially claims, some “real” emails from the father of the oldest and most popular cryptocurrency finally entered the public record.
Bitcoin pioneer Adam Back testified in the UK High Court of Justice on Tuesday in the ongoing case between the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and CSW. In his testimony, several emails from Satoshi to Back, dating back to 2008 and 2009, were entered into the court record by COPA.
The first emails between Back and Satoshi (or the various team members behind the moniker) predate the launch of Bitcoin by four months. Satoshi wrote to confirm the proper citation format for Back’s “Hashcash” paper in his soon-to-be-released Bitcoin paper. The email reveals the intention to reference Hashcash as part of a new use for hash-based proof-of-work in electronic cash networks.
Satoshi shared a pre-release draft of the Bitcoin whitepaper with Back and requested feedback, indicating that Back was free to share it with other individuals as well. In the resulting back-and-forth discussion, Back suggested Satoshi look into other proposed protocols such as “B-Money” by cryptographer Wei Dai and “Micromint.”
In later emails in January 2009, Nakamoto wrote Back to thank him for recommending the other papers and to inform him that the open-source Bitcoin software had been released to the public.
Nakamoto Remains Ever-Mysterious
15 years after the first Bitcoin block was mined — and the eternal mystery surrounding Satoshi’s identity has not been solved. Despite Adam Back maintaining that he did not contribute to the coding or programming of Bitcoin, some crypto enthusiasts still seem to think he is the enigmatic creator of BTC. Notably, the newly unearthed emails further disprove such claims.
In his written witness statement, Back noted that the conversation between himself and Satoshi was not “elaborate” and he did not become interested in Bitcoin as a contributor until 2012. He also revealed that he had never published the said emails in the past.
A more outlandish theory hinges on the popular belief that the late Hal Finney himself, who was the first to download and receive Bitcoin, was Satoshi. However, there is evidence that debunks such speculations.