currency and cryptography,
he had an answer from
Satoshi the next morning.
“We
definitely
have
similar interests!” Satoshi
wrote
with
innocent
enthusiasm, before describing
the challenge that confronted
Bitcoin:
You know, I think
there were a lot more
people interested in
the 90’s, but after
more than a decade of
failed Trusted Third
Party based systems
(DigiCash, etc.), they
see it as a lost cause. I
hope they can make
the distinction, that
this is the first time I
know of that we’re
trying a non-trust
based system.
It became clear, though,
that Satoshi’s program on its
own was just a bunch of code,
sitting on a server like so
many other dreams hatched
by programmers. Most of
those dreams die, forgotten
on a hard drive somewhere.
Bitcoin needed more users
and defenders like Hal to
survive, and there weren’t
many to be found. A week
after
the
program
was
released, one writer on the
Cryptography mailing list
wrote: “No major government
is likely to allow Bitcoin in
its present form to operate on
a large scale.”
Hal acknowledged that
the author could prove to be
right, but came to Satoshi’s
defense again: “Bitcoin has a
couple of things going for it:
one is that it is distributed,
with no single point of
failure,
no
‘mint,’
no
company with officers that
can
be
subpoenaed
and
arrested and shut down.”
Even Hal’s enthusiasm,
though, appeared to flag at
times. As his computer kept
working at full capacity,
trying to generate new coins,
he began to worry about the
carbon
dioxide
emissions
caused by all the computers
racing to mint coins. After his
son, Jason, complained about
the wear and tear it was
causing to the computer, Hal
turned off the Generate Coins
option. Hal also had begun to
fear that with a public ledger
of all transactions—even if
everyone was represented by
a confusing-looking address
—Bitcoin might not be as
anonymous as he initially
thought.
And then something much
worse
happened.
Hal’s
speech began slurring. He
became increasingly sluggish
during his marathon training.
Soon, all his free moments
were spent visiting doctors,
trying
to
identify
the
mysterious
ailment.
Eventually it was diagnosed
as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the
degenerative condition that
would gradually cause all his
muscles to wither away inside
his body. By the time he
learned this, Hal was out of
the
Bitcoin
game.
He
wouldn’t return until his
condition was much worse
and Bitcoin’s was much
better.
CHAPTER 3
May 2009
In early May, a few months
after
Hal
Finney’s
last
messages, Satoshi Nakamoto
received an e-mail written in
stilted but precise English.
“I have a good touch on
Java and C languages from
school courses (I’m studying
CS), but not so very much
development experience yet,”
read the note, signed Martti
Malmi.
This was clearly not the
voice of a grizzled veteran of
the Cypherpunk movement
like Hal. But Martti displayed
something more important at
this point: eagerness.
“I would like to help with
Bitcoin, if there’s something I
can do,” he wrote.
Satoshi had gotten a few
promising e-mails since Hal
had disappeared two months
earlier, but Martti was already
demonstrating
more
commitment than the others.
Before
reaching
out
to
Satoshi, Martti had written
about
Bitcoin
on
anti-
state.org, a forum dedicated
to the possibility of an
anarchist society organized
only by the market. Using the
screen name Trickster, Martti
gave a brief description of the
Bitcoin idea and asked for
thoughts:
A widespread
adoption of such a
system sounds like
something that could
have a devastating
effect on the state’s
ability to feed on its
livestock. What do
you think about this?
I’m really excited
about the thought of
something practical
that could truly bring
us closer to freedom
in our lifetime :-)
Now we just need
some convincing
proof that the software
and the system work
securely enough to be
taken into real use.
Martti included a link to
this post in his first e-mail to
Satoshi, and Satoshi quickly
read it and responded.
“Your understanding of
Bitcoin is spot on,” Satoshi
told him.
MARTTI’S ENTHUSIASM HELPED
CONFIRM the shift in strategy
Satoshi had made since the
beginning of the year. Back
when
Satoshi
had
first
launched the software, his
writings were drily focused
on the technical specifications
of the programming.
But after the first few
weeks,
Satoshi
began
emphasizing
the
broader
ideological motivations for
the software to help win over
a broader audience, and
privacy was only a part of it.
In a February posting on the
website
of
the
P2P
Foundation,
a
group
dedicated to decentralized,
peer-to-peer
technology,
Satoshi led off by talking
about
problems
with
traditional, or fiat, currencies,
a term for money generated
by government decree, or fiat.
“The root problem with
conventional currency is all
the trust that’s required to
make it work,” Satoshi wrote.
“The central bank must be
trusted not to debase the
currency, but the history of
fiat currencies is full of
breaches of that trust.”
Currency debasement was
not an issue the Cypherpunks
had discussed much, but
Satoshi made it clear with this
posting, and not for the last
time, that he had been
thinking about more than just
the
concerns
of
the
Cypherpunks when designing
the Bitcoin software. The
issue that Satoshi referred to
here—currency debasement
—was, in fact, a problem
with
existing
monetary
systems that had much more
potential widespread appeal,
especially in the wake of the
government-sponsored bank
bailouts that had occurred just
a few months earlier in the
United States.
Throughout
history,
central banks have been
accused of debasing their
currencies by printing too
much