Discover historic emails revealing discussions between Adam Back and Satoshi Nakamoto, offering insights into the genesis of Bitcoin. Analysis on key papers and individuals involved.

On February 23, Pete Rizzo, a Bitcoin historian and journalist, unveiled a collection of five emails exchanged between cryptographer Adam Back and the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 and 2009.

The initial email, dated August 2008, revolves around a discussion on Bitcoin, a mere four months before its official launch.

In the message, Satoshi, who was preparing to release a paper, made reference to Back's early attempt at creating digital currency known as HashCash.

Satoshi's Quest for Inspiration

Back responded by suggesting that Satoshi explore a paper titled "B-money" by Wei Dei.

“Dei was a well-known cryptographer working on digital cash and is a frequently cited candidate for Satoshi,” explained Rizzo.

Satoshi admitted to not having read the “B-money” paper but stated that their ideas “start from exactly that point,” elucidating:

“The main thing my system [Bitcoin] adds is to also use proof-of-work to support a distributed timestamp server.”

A day later, Adam apologized for not reading the paper and directed Satoshi to another document called “Micromint.”

The final email in January 2009 saw Satoshi expressing gratitude and informing Adam about Bitcoin’s formal software release as v0.1.

“The main idea of the system is the generation of a chain of hash-based proof of work to create self-evident proof of the majority consensus. Users get new coins by contributing proof of work to the chain.”

Notably, Satoshi used the pronoun “We” in these emails, proposing a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.

This revelation raises questions about whether Satoshi was a lone operator or part of a team, dispelling the theory that Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Satoshi also employed two different email providers and addresses: anonymousspeech.com (now parked at GoDaddy) and vistomail.com (also a GoDaddy-parked domain).

Bitcoin's Market Landscape

Fast forward fourteen years, and Bitcoin is trading at $51,000 in the Friday morning Asian trading session, with a 1.2% decline on the day.

Having maintained its position above $50,000 for ten consecutive days, analysts anticipate a market correction following weeks of robust gains.