Twelve years ago, on this day April 23, 2011, an enigmatic individual, known only as Satoshi Nakamoto, wrote one of the last letters to software developer Mike Hearn. The elusive mastermind behind Bitcoin conveyed in the message that he, she or they had “moved on to other things” and confidently stated that the project was entrusted to “good hands”.
Following the creation of Bitcoin and the initial implementation of the technology, the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared from the public eye in December 2010. The elusive innovator’s last public message was issued on December 12 of that year, in which Nakamoto stressed that “there is more work to be done on [denial of service] DoS.” Subsequently, Nakamoto corresponded with some of the developers behind Bitcoin, including Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen.
Hearn received an email from Nakamoto on April 23, 2011, titled “Holding coins in an unspendable state for a rolling time window”, in which he inquired about the possibility of Nakamoto returning to the Bitcoin community. However, Nakamoto claimed that he or she or had “moved on to other things”, confidently stating that the project was in “good hands with Gavin and everyone”. The Bitcoin creator also expressed hope for the continued development of Bitcoin, Mike Hearn’s Java version of Bitcoin, as it “gives Java developers something to work on.”
Nakamoto: ‘Make it about the open source project instead’
A few days later, Andresen received an email from Nakamoto, in which the innovative pseudonym expressed his frustration at the negative image he was receiving in the press. “I wish you wouldn’t keep talking about me as a mysterious shadow figure,” Nakamoto wrote. “The press turns it into a pirate coin. Instead, maybe you should talk about the open source project and give more credit to your contributors; That helps them motivate themselves.” This email is considered the last known communication from the enigmatic creator of Bitcoin.
On March 7, 2014, there was speculation when a Newsweek article claimed that the creator of Bitcoin was a 64-year-old Japanese-American named Dorian Nakamoto. However, a message purportedly written by Nakamoto appeared on the P2P Foundation’s online forum stating: “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.” Since then, no other messages from the elusive Bitcoin creator have surfaced, and the emails to Hearn and Andresen remain a poignant reminder of Nakamoto’s absence from public view for a decade.
