Hal Finney Thought of it First

January 10, 2025

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Welcome back to Bitcoin Season 2!

For today’s Writer’s Room, Colin and Charlie celebrate Running Bitcoin Day by picking through the Bitcoin Talk archives for a selection of Hal Finney’s most prescient takes. Finney is famous for being the first person (after Satoshi) to run Bitcoin — a claim to fame that involves receiving the first non-mining related transaction from Bitcoin’s creator — as well as being one of the earliest contributors to Bitcoin Core. Hal was highly active in Bitcoin’s salad days and a prolific poster on Bitcoin Talk, where he provided his thoughts on Bitcoin’s earliest versions, pontificated over the cryptocurrency’s future, and shared ideas with its earliest adopters. Many of Hal’s ideas and prognostications were incredibly incisive and clairvoyant — almost frighteningly so — hence the title of today’s show.

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