Bitcoin Community Marks 17th Anniversary of Hal Finney's Historic 'Running Bitcoin' Post

The Bitcoin community is observing the 17th anniversary of cypherpunk pioneer Hal Finney's landmark social media post declaring he was operating Bitcoin node software on January 10, 2009.

Finney, a computer scientist and cryptographer born in 1956, was among the first individuals to engage with Satoshi Nakamoto following the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper. He became the recipient of the network's inaugural Bitcoin transaction when Nakamoto transferred him 10 BTC, now valued at more than $900,500.

The brief post has become a foundational element of Bitcoin history, documenting the cryptocurrency's nascent stages as a decentralized digital payment system.

Finney's close collaboration with the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator has fueled persistent speculation about whether he himself was Satoshi Nakamoto. A 2024 HBO documentary series revisited this theory, pointing to his technical expertise and cryptographic research publications as supporting evidence.

However, Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp presented counterevidence in 2023, noting that Finney completed a marathon race while email correspondence between Satoshi and another developer was actively occurring, with the final message sent mere minutes before Finney's finish time.

Finney passed away in 2014 at age 58 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurological condition.