without requiring any judicial
approval.
The
financial
industry seemed to provide
politicians with an extralegal
way to crack down on
dissent.
The WikiLeaks blockade
went to the core of some of
the
concerns
that
had
motivated
the
original
Cypherpunks.
Bitcoin,
in
turn, seemed to have the
potential to counteract the
problem. Each person on the
network controlled his or her
coins with his or her private
key. There was no central
organization that could freeze
a person’s Bitcoin address or
stop coins from being sent
from a particular address.
A few days after the
WikiLeaks blockade began,
PCWorld wrote a widely
circulated story that noted the
obvious utility of Bitcoin in
the situation: “Nobody can
stop the Bitcoin system or
censor it, short of turning off
the
entire
Internet.
If
WikiLeaks
had
requested
Bitcoins then they would
have received their donations
without a second thought.”
It wasn’t clear if Bitcoin
could actually be used in this
particular
instance,
but
whatever
the
practical
possibilities, the blockade
was helping elevate the
debate around Bitcoin beyond
the rather narrow issues of
privacy
and
government
money-printing that had been
dominant in the early days.
Here
was
a
broader
philosophical issue that could
attract a wider audience, and
the forums were full of new
members who had been
drawn in by the attention.
One new user, a young man
in England named Amir
Taaki,
proposed
making
Bitcoin
donations
to
WikiLeaks. Amir argued this
could raise Bitcoin’s profile
at the same time that it could
help WikiLeaks raise money.
This kicked off a vigorous
debate on the forum. A
number
of
programmers
worried that the Bitcoin
network was not ready for all
the traffic—and government
scrutiny—that might come if
it started to be used for
controversial donations.
“It
is
extraordinarily
unwise to make Bitcoin such
a highly visible target, at such
an early stage in this project.
There could be a lot of
‘collateral damage’ in the
Bitcoin community while you
make your principled stand,”
one programmer wrote.
Satoshi eventually ended
the debate. When someone on
the forum wrote, “Bring it
on,”
Satoshi
responded
forcefully:
No, don’t “bring it
on.”
The project needs
to grow gradually so
the software can be
strengthened along the
way.
I make this appeal
to WikiLeaks not to
try to use Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a small beta
community in its
infancy. You would
not stand to get more
than pocket change,
and the heat you
would bring would
likely destroy us at
this stage.
This
was
enough
to
convince Amir.
“I’ve done a U-turn on
my earlier view and agree.
Let’s protect and care for
Bitcoin until she leaves her
nursery onto the economic
killing fields.”
This was one of an ever-
diminishing
number
of
communications from Satoshi
during the fall of 2010.
Messages from both Satoshi
and
Martti
had
been
increasingly rare. In Martti’s
case, after a year of working
on Bitcoin free, he needed a
regular source of income. In
September, two months after
the Slashdot story, he took a
full-time job with a firm that
analyzed social-media data.
On top of having a full
schedule, Martti also saw that
he was no longer needed.
Gavin and a few others were
taking over many of the day-
to-day tasks that Martti had
previously handled. And the
chat channels were crawling
with people ready to help out.
Satoshi’s gradual fading
was less explicit. He still
posted occasionally to the
forums when there were
specific questions, but he
never appeared on the chat
channel
and
increasingly
shifted to infrequent private
communications with Gavin
and
just
a
few
other
developers. In December,
Satoshi asked Gavin if he
would mind having his e-mail
address posted on the Bitcoin
website, as a point of contact.
After his own name went up,
Gavin noticed that Satoshi’s
e-mail came down.
When the last public
forum
post
came
from
Satoshi, on December 12,
2010, there was nothing
marking
it
as
such.
Announcing the latest version
of the software, version
0.3.19, the post was markedly
different in tone from those
early messages, selling the
world-beating potential of
Bitcoin. The main sentiment
now was a warning that
Bitcoin was still extremely
susceptible
to
denial-of-
service
attacks,
which
overwhelm a system with
message traffic.
“There are still more
ways to attack than I can
count,” Satoshi wrote in the
brief note.
This came just days after
Hal Finney checked back in
for the first time since early
2009. His disease, ALS, had
progressed quickly and he
was now largely confined to
the family living room, in a
special setup his family had
concocted so that he could
continue
working
on
a
computer.
Hal made an unassuming
return to the community with
some relatively dry comments
about patterns in the price of
Bitcoin and the possibility of
using Bitcoin’s blockchain as
a new kind of database. He
was as enthusiastic as ever
about the network.
“I’d like to hear some
specific criticisms of the
code. To me it looks like an
impressive job, although I’d
wish for more comments,” he
wrote on the forum. “This is
some powerful machinery.”
This provoked Satoshi’s
second-to-last post: “That
means a lot coming from you,
Hal. Thanks.”
This exchange set off a
discussion among people who
had never heard Hal’s name
before.
“Who is Hal on the
forum?” one user wrote.
“Satoshi seemed to know of
him.”
The question quickly gave
way to the bigger mystery:
Who is Satoshi?
“Is he a real person? ;-)” a
forum user asked.
“Hmm, there are almost
no
results
for
Satoshi
unrelated to Bitcoin,” another
user wrote after some quick
research.
This set off the first stages