Unseen Satoshi Nakamoto Emails Revealed, What Do They Tell Us?

On Feb. 23, Bitcoin historian and journalist Pete Rizzo shared five emails from 2008 and 2009 between cryptographer Adam Back and BTC creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

The first one from August 2008 is a discussion on Bitcoin four months before its official launch.

“I’m getting ready to release a paper,” wrote the elusive Satoshi, who referenced Back’s early attempt at creating digital money called HashCash.

Satoshi Sought Bitcoin Inspiration

Back responds, suggesting that Satoshi investigates a paper called “B-money” by Wei Dei.

“Dei was a well-known cryptographer working on digital cash and is a frequently cited candidate for Satoshi,” explained Rizzo.

NEW: Adam Back’s complete email history with Satoshi Nakamato was entered in the court records today

Email #1: Adam and Satoshi discuss #Bitcoin 4 months before its official launch pic.twitter.com/HwxnWsbYwI

— Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) February 22, 2024

Satoshi replied, admitting they’d never read the “B-money” paper, but their ideas “start from exactly that point,” they said before explaining:

“The main thing my system [Bitcoin] adds is to also use proof-of-work to support a distributed timestamp server.”

A day after first emailing Satoshi, Adam writes back, apologizing for not reading the paper before directing Satoshi to another paper called “Micromint.”

The final email in January 2009 was Satoshi thanking Adam again and letting him know about Bitcoin’s formal software release as v0.1.

“The main idea of the system is the generation of a chain of hash-based proof of work to create self-evident proof of the majority consensus. Users get new coins by contributing proof of work to the chain.”

It was also observed that Satoshi mentioned “We” in his emails. “We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network,” they wrote.

So the plot thickens, was Satoshi a lone wolf, or was Bitcoin created by a team of people? It also eliminates the theory that Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Satoshi also used two different email providers and addresses in his communications. One was anonymousspeech.com, which is now parked at GoDaddy, and the other was vistomail.com, also domain parked at GoDaddy.