Recently, I came across a quite interesting on-chain signal. An early Bitcoin address that had been dormant for over ten years suddenly became active, gradually transferring funds to a major exchange starting in early September. So far, it has transferred 46 BTC, which is roughly about 3.65 million USD at current prices. Who is the owner of this address? It’s the legendary figure Hal Finney.

You may have heard this name. Hal Finney was a true pioneer in cryptography and one of the earliest recipients of Bitcoin. On January 11, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto sent him the first Bitcoin transfer, 10 BTC. Since then, Hal Finney has been considered one of the most likely candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto. He was not only an early Bitcoin developer but also participated in the development of PGP encryption in the 1990s and later became an early contributor to the Tor project. His credentials in cryptography are simply incredible.

Even more interestingly, Bloomberg senior analyst Eric Balchunas tweeted in August 2021 that he believed Hal Finney was actually Satoshi Nakamoto himself. He also uncovered an article Hal Finney published in 1993, which surprisingly mentioned the idea of creating encrypted collectible cards—an idea that is almost identical to today’s NFTs. Keep in mind, this was 16 years before Bitcoin was born.

Unfortunately, this mystery may never be fully solved. Hal Finney passed away in 2014 due to ALS at the age of 58. Before his death, he directly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto in an interview with Forbes, but that doesn’t diminish his enormous contributions to the crypto world. He also mentioned during his lifetime that he stored his private keys in a safe and left them to his children. So, these BTC transfers are very likely being handled by his family managing his estate.

Currently, Hal Finney’s wallet still holds about 1,179 BTC, a fortune that witnesses Bitcoin’s entire history from worthlessness to today’s value. Whether or not he was Satoshi, Hal Finney’s contributions to cryptography and the early development of Bitcoin are undeniable. He is like a symbol of an era, reminding us how this industry evolved from a geek’s dream into its current scale.