Early Bitcoin contributor Hal Finney’s Twitter account is back after 12 years
The Twitter account belonging to early Bitcoin contributor and user Hal Finney has been reactivated after twelve years of inactivity.
Finney was the first person to receive a blockchain transaction from Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. He continued to use and contribute to Bitcoin until his death from ALS complications in 2014.
Finney’s Twitter account has been dormant since 2010. Concerns surfaced in recent days that the account could be deleted under Elon Musk’s plans to delete 1.5 billion inactive accounts — inadvertently erasing parts of Bitcoin’s history in the process.
These concerns were apparently noticed, as Finney’s account became active again on December 16 at approximately 12:00 PM PST. The return of the account was initially met with some skepticism, according to Bitcoin lawyer and software engineer Jameson Lopp warned that a bad actor could have taken control of Finney’s account.
However, Hal’s wife, Fran Finney, soon confirmed that she was managing the account on her husband’s behalf. She addressed Lopp in a tweet, writing:
This is [Fran Finney]. I’m tweeting for Hal… to avoid his account being purged by Elon.
She later wrote:
I want to keep Hal’s account active, and will occasionally post from his account. When I post, I will continue to tag myself as the poster.
The news comes shortly after another development related to early Bitcoin activity. On Tuesday, December 13, Martin Shkreli attempted to show that the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, based on an encrypted signature, is actually former cartel boss and programmer Paul Le Roux. The relevant signature reads:
This transaction was made by Paul Leroux to Hal Finney on Jan 12, 2009 #bitcoin
The signature appears to have been created by Finney’s real address. However, one commentator has pointed out that the type of signature used to make the admission was not implemented in Bitcoin until after Finney’s death. Therefore, the statement in that signature could not have been made at the time of the transaction in 2009. Finney’s private key has likely been stolen, and the statement is likely false.
As such, the authentic reactivation of Finney’s account today appears to be unrelated to the apparently fake Bitcoin signature seen earlier this week.
