I just remembered a rather sad story that few people know within the crypto community. Today marks the 12th anniversary of Hal Finney's passing — one of the most important figures in Bitcoin's history that most people have never heard of.

Who was Hal Finney? He was the second person on the entire Bitcoin network when it first launched, after Satoshi Nakamoto. On January 12, 2009, Satoshi sent Finney 10 Bitcoin — the very first transaction in history. At that time, the network consisted of only two people, two computers running nodes, exchanging a historic transaction that no one knew would become what it is today.

But the story behind it is even more fascinating. Before Bitcoin was created, Finney was already a legend in the cypherpunk community since the 1990s. He was the second programmer recruited by Phil Zimmermann to develop PGP — a military-grade encryption tool that was made freely available. Finney rewrote the core encryption engine, making PGP 2.0 significantly faster and more secure. He also operated anonymous email relay servers so people could send messages without revealing their identities.

In 2004, Finney created RPOW — a reusable proof-of-work system. It worked very similarly to Bitcoin: users expend computational power to produce proof of work, a server verifies it, and then issues a new token of equivalent value. This was an important stepping stone before Bitcoin was launched four years later.

When Satoshi published the Bitcoin whitepaper on October 31, 2008, on the same cypherpunk mailing list, Finney immediately recognized its significance. Bitcoin solved a problem that RPOW couldn't: it was fully decentralized, no need for a server, no trust required. The entire network maintained the ledger collectively.

But that was also when fate took a turn. In 2009, at age 53 and actively contributing to Bitcoin, Finney was diagnosed with ALS — a disease that causes muscles to gradually atrophy, eventually leading to paralysis. Despite this, he continued working. Even when he could only operate his computer with eye-tracking devices, Finney kept coding for Bitcoin.

On August 28, 2014, Hal Finney passed away. His body was transferred to a cryonics organization in Arizona, preserved in liquid nitrogen, hoping future medicine could revive him. He even paid for his preservation with Bitcoin.

Many speculate that Finney was Satoshi Nakamoto. The first reason is geography — both lived in Temple City, California, just a few blocks apart. The second is skill — Finney was a top cryptographer, fully capable of creating Bitcoin. The third is timing — Satoshi withdrew in 2011, right when Finney’s health was worsening.

But Finney publicly denied being Satoshi and even released email exchanges with Satoshi to prove they were different people. So whether Finney was Satoshi remains an enduring mystery.

The cypherpunk forum once held a broad discussion: how to create a digital currency independent of governments? Finney and Satoshi were two among those seeking the answer. They met at a pivotal moment, experimenting together on a project that few paid attention to at the time. Two computers quietly operated in a corner of the internet, unseen, without applause.

Today, Bitcoin has become a financial system worth over 1.3 trillion USD. Central banks study it, Wall Street embraces it. But Hal Finney’s story still reminds us that every major technology begins with ordinary people — those who believe in something and decide to act.

Finney once wrote in 1992: "Computer technology can be used to liberate and protect people, not control them." This was written 17 years before Bitcoin, but it predicted exactly what we face today.

If someday medicine can truly revive Finney, would he be proud or disappointed to see the world of crypto today? There’s no definitive answer. But nonetheless, Hal Finney remains an irreplaceable figure in Bitcoin’s history. Without his participation, support, and contributions, Bitcoin might forever remain just an unfulfilled idea.