Today, April 26, 2022, marks 11 years since the last time Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto sent his last known message.
Since then, This individual, group of people, or entity has never been heard from again.who left a legacy that has revolutionized finance as we know it and the worldview of thousands of people who use his invention today.
Satoshi’s last message
Actually, Satoshi Nakamoto’s last public message fue shared on the Bitcoin Talk forum on December 12, 2010, but on April 26, 2011, the inventor sent the last email of which Gavin Andresen is known, one of the developers who collaborated with the project during that time and spoke frequently with Satoshi.
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According to Andresen’s files, consulted by journalist Pete Rizzo in the report “The Last Days of Satoshi”, Satoshi sent an email where he stated that he would not like to be perceived as a “mysterious and dark figure” [mysterious shadowy figure]which is why he rebuked Andresen to avoid referring to him with such intrigue before the media.
At the time, Gavin Andresen was a frequent Bitcoin speaker and spokesperson, being the visible face of the project, unlike Satoshi.
“The press casts that angle as that of a pirate cryptocurrency. Instead, try to explain it as an open source project and give contributors more credit; that helps motivate them,” Satoshi wrote.
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After that, Satoshi handed a crypto key to Andresen to receive security alerts related to Bitcoin. Given that message, Andresen notified Satoshi that he had been invited by the CIA, the main US intelligence agency, to participate in a conference on new technologies.
The next day Gavin notified the BitcoinTalk forum community what would give a presentation on Bitcoin at the CIA headquarters for the month of June 2011, recognizing that this would unleash not one, but multiple conspiracy theories.
“I have accepted an invitation to speak [con la CIA] because the fact that he was invited means that Bitcoin is already on his radar, and I think it would be a good opportunity to talk about why I believe that Bitcoin will make the world a better place.
I think the goal of this project is to create a better currency, create a more competitive and efficient international payment system, and give people more control over their finances. And I don’t think any of those goals are incompatible with the goals of the government.”
Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin developer.
However, Gavin did acknowledge that he was concerned that the CIA might do something with that information that was not wanted by the community. “I think accepting their invitation and being open about what Bitcoin really is will make it less of a threat,” he said.
Did Satoshi get out of Bitcoin out of fear or was it an ethical decision?
Much has been speculated about the alleged ethical decision of Satoshi Nakamoto. It is often said that the creator of Bitcoin considered that his absence would benefit the decentralization of the projectby not having to rely on a single figure to serve as the main voice or authority on crucial issues and discussions.
However, there are indications that Satoshi preferred to protect himself from being attacked by the possible enemies that Bitcoin was awakening. The penultimate post by Satoshi on the BitcoinTalk forum denotes the caution that the developer was taking regarding the notoriety that the project was acquiring.
In the post, which was about an article on Bitcoin in PC World magazine that was well received in the bitcoin community, Satoshi wrote:
“It would have been nice to have this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed our way.”
Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin.
Do we need Satoshi?
The Satoshi’s last public postalso held at BitcoinTalk, was of a technical nature, where he announced some optimizations to the protocol to resist spam or Denial of Service attacks, although he warned that there was still a lot of work to be done in that regard.
Since then, Bitcoin has gone through many debates and moments of tension in its updates, the most famous being the so-called block size warwhich ended in the activation of SegWit on August 24, 2017.
Other debates and activation processes have followed, the most recent being that of Taproot, in November 2021. Right now, the community and developers are at odds regarding the activation of Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 119 (BIP 119), due to differences in several of its characteristics.
Although Satoshi is not present, the open and free nature of Bitcoin is an invitation to anyone to express themselves, to collaborate with their work, so the presence or influence of its creator is not really necessary. Bitcoin will go its way as he did when Satoshi disappeared from public view.
Could Satoshi come back?
For sure, it is not known if Satoshi Nakamoto is dead, on vacation on a Caribbean island, or was abducted by aliens interested in Bitcoin; so there is a possibility that Satoshi Nakamoto will return or manifest again at some point.
According to an investAccording to Sergio Demian Lerner, co-founder of the RSK sidechain, Satoshi Nakamoto could own approximately 1 million bitcoins (BTC). 5% of the maximum emission of 21 million BTC.
This is because Satoshi was the first Bitcoin miner and according to Lerner, would have mined practically alone for more than 1 yearfrom January 3, 2009 to January 25, 2010, from the genesis block (block 0) to block 36,288.
So a very elegant way for Satoshi to return to the public eye would be to make a transaction with one of the outputs or outputs (UTXO) of your property, in order to make yourself felt in the history or record of transactions and among the community.
However, a more reliable proof of his return would be that of sign an email or message with your PGP public key. Meanwhile, we are left with the memory of him, honored in statues and pieces of art, and knowing that Bitcoin will continue to function and now it is in the hands of its users.