You have probably heard about Harold Thomas Finney II, better known in the Bitcoin community as Hal Finney. In addition to a great legacy as a renowned cryptographer and computer scientist, he also left us an inspiring example of the struggle and passion for life and technology. Today we’ll cover a little bit about its history, its connection with cypherpunks and Bitcoin.
Finney was born in Coalinga, California, on May 4, 1956. He attended the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) and graduated in computer engineering in 1979.
He was a notable defender of cryptography and freedom and, in the 1990s, he was one of the first and best known members of the Cypherpunks, a community where he actively participated in the e-mail list and whose goal was to empower individuals with cryptographic solutions and other tools for the preservation of privacy, anonymity and financial autonomy.
After working on computer game development for a few years, because of his intuition for cryptography, Hal became the first developer to work with American cryptographer Phil Zimmermann at PGP Corporation on developing PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) ), one of the world's first privacy encryption software.
In 2004, based on some theories by Nick Szabo, he built the Reusable Proofs of Work, which aimed to be a prototype for digital money. Although the intention was that RPOW would only be a prototype, it was very sophisticated software that would have been able to serve a large network if it had become popular.
Furthermore, it was a significant initial step in the history of cryptocurrencies and could be considered a precursor to Bitcoin.
In addition to articles on the Reusable Proofs of Work, he also wrote several others, on Privacy (1993), Politics and Technology (1994), Double Spending (1993), among others, which can be found on the website: www.nakamotoinstitute.org .
Hal Finney was one of the most influential members of the Cypherpunk movement and due to his forward-looking spirit and for loving the mystery and paradoxes of cryptography, he was one of the first people to recognize the value of Bitcoin and the changes it would bring to the world.
He showed genuine interest in the electronic money proposal submitted by Satoshi Nakamoto when it was announced in 2008 on the cypherpunks email list, which some members viewed with some skepticism, since fake projects had previously been announced.
Finney soon downloaded the Bitcoin source code and started running it on an IBM Windows machine, and since then, he has remained involved and constantly contributed to software improvements and corresponded with Satoshi Nakamoto via emails in which he reported a series bug reports and suggested fixes in the code.
He was one of the first people to execute a node in the Bitcoin network, assisting Satoshi in validating transactions and, in this way, contributed a lot to the start of what would become the first scarce digital asset, with a billion dollar market capitalization.
In January 2009, Finney was the first recipient of a Bitcoin transaction. As a test, Satoshi Nakamoto sent him 10 BTC, which would represent the first of so many millions of transactions that would be carried out next.
THIS WAS THE PHRASE WAS PUBLISHED BY HAL FINNEY ON JANUARY 11, 2009 AND WAS KNOWN AS THE FIRST TWITTER RECORD ABOUT BITCOIN AND WAS MARKED FOREVER.
The first transaction of the Bitcoin network took place on January 12, 2009, nine days after the launch of the network.
Hal Finney received 10 BTC directly from Satoshi Nakamoto, thus proving that the network was in fact functioning as a means of payment. Like all the others, it is recorded on the blockchain until today and available for everyone to see.
In 2009, Hal Finney was diagnosed with a degenerative disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, beginning the most difficult phase of his life, which would interrupt many of his plans and dreams.
Used to running marathons, Hal had to adapt to the restrictions imposed by physical limitations, but he kept smiling and working on his passions and goals as long as he could, demonstrating a courageous and truly inspiring posture.
ALS was what motivated the Ice Bucket Challenge, which consists of throwing a bucket of ice water over your head. The gesture aims to raise awareness about the disease and has already been joined by several celebrities to date.
Hal Finney passed away on a Thursday morning, August 28, 2014, in Phoenix, Arizona, at age 58, after five years of battling ALS.
Finney became one of the first to adopt a technology that, to many, may seem like something from science fiction, the so-called human cryopreservation. It consists of the process of freezing the human body so that it can be revived decades or even centuries later.
He opted to have his body cryogenically preserved on the premises of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona, paying through life insurance and bitcoin donated by fans.
His wife, Fran Finney, will also have her body cryopreserved when she dies. The intention is that, if science manages to develop technology for this, it is possible to go back and see what the future will be like.
His body was frozen and kept at a temperature of approximately -196ºC, in an aluminum capsule inside a 10 meter high tank with 450 liters of liquid nitrogen.
The option of having your body frozen is linked to Extropianism, a philosophy that emerged in the 1990s and addresses transhumanism and unites people in favor of some common goals, such as technological growth, increased human potential, spatial colonization, nanotechnology and even digital currencies.
Finney was a longtime member of the Extropy Institute and many of the people who were involved in the cypherpunk movement were also adept at these ideas.
Finney's name is often raised as one of the main candidates when it comes to who would be the inventor of Bitcoin.
Some evidence is favorable to this. In addition to being the first to receive a Bitcoin transaction, Satoshi Nakamoto's last known email correspondence is dated April 26, 2011 and coincides with his retirement from the PGP Corporation earlier that year.
In this email, Satoshi Nakamoto communicates with developer Gavin Andresen, who informs him that he had been invited to speak at an event related to the CIA. Since then, Nakamoto has never responded.
Some research also points to similarities between Hall's writing style and Satoshi, which strengthens these speculations. Finney denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto and wrote that, although he had no idea of Nakamoto's true identity or location, he imagined the creator of the Bitcoin as "a young man of Japanese descent who was very intelligent and sincere".
Another curious piece of evidence is that Finney lived for 10 years a few blocks from where Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto lived, in the small town of Temple City, California.
Dorian is a Japanese-American programmer and, due to the fact that his Christian name is the same as that of the creator of Bitcoin, he has sometimes been declared to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto.
This hypothesis was more widely documented in an article in Newsweek magazine, in 2014 Dorian stated that he did not invent or work on anything related to Bitcoin. Some people suspect that Finney would have used the figure of Dorian as a kind of pseudonym for inspiration to honor the humble California programmer who, at the time, was experiencing financial difficulties.
Hal Finney published his latest post on the BitcoinTalk forum, where he gave an emotional account of his trajectory and experience with Bitcoin and revealing about the disease that had affected him.
THE COMPUTER CAN BE USED AS A TOOL TO RELEASE AND PROTECT PEOPLE, INSTEAD OF CONTROLING THEM.
Hal Finney's contributions to the development and dissemination of Bitcoin were extremely important and he left a great technical and human legacy, which will be remembered forever.
Whether he is Satoshi Nakamoto or not, he still remains an unknown, but that does not really matter and perhaps the intention of the creator or creators of Bitcoin is precisely that, to remain anonymous, thus protecting their identities and the network, such disruption caused for that ivention.
The fact is that:
