Satoshi Nakamoto's first collaborator, Marty “Sirius” Malmi, has released his entire email correspondence with the Bitcoin creator.
With an ongoing lawsuit in the UK, the new emails are the most significant addition to the list of what we know about Bitcoin's still-anonymous creator.
Below are the most important new results.
Email #1: Satoshi's Bitcoin Scaling Assumptions
When asked how Bitcoin would scale in the future, Satoshi hypothesized that the network could have a maximum of 100,000 nodes.
Here he goes into calculations that evaluate the economics of the bandwidth costs of nodes (read: miners) in propagating transactions across the network, the economic costs they may incur, and how this can be cost-effectively passed on to users.
It also discusses the implementation of fee-paying users, and hints at the possibility of charging the necessary fees to confirm that your transaction is market driven given the processing power of the network.
Overall, it's an interesting calculation, although not out of the ordinary for those who have read Satoshi's full Bitcoin forum posts.
There Satoshi frequently spoke about his vision for how the network could grow further, and it is worth noting that many of his ideas have not proven to be viable based on subsequent development work.
Email #2: Bitcoin doesn't waste energy
Although he did not want to stick around to see the massive rise in Bitcoin mining using stranded resources, it turns out that Satoshi knew that the network was green.
Among the first criticisms of his new creation, Satoshi spent time addressing the idea that Bitcoin mining was wasteful in forums, most notably saying that not having a currency like Bitcoin would be an even greater waste.
However, here he expands on the idea in greater detail, and in a more clear and descriptive way than we have seen before.
Email #3: Satoshi about time stamping
There is still significant debate today about whether Bitcoin is money, or whether or not it can have other additional uses.
In this email exchange, Satoshi appears to offer some insight into the debate, stating his belief that blockchain could be used as a distributed time-stamping server. This is similar to what happened in Guatemala, where blockchain technology has been used to certify controversial elections in recent years.
Satoshi describes the differences between #Bitcoin And DigiCash, David Chaum's failed e-money. This is notable because Chum's work had a profound influence on cypherpunks, including Hal Finney. It specifically discusses the differences in privacy properties between the two models, and notes that unlike the CHUM scheme it did not support an offline model, requiring all participants to be online to utilize the system.
It also explains the limited maximum supply of Bitcoin.
Satoshi was concerned about the legal risks he faced with the launch #Bitcoinstating that he was “uncomfortable” explicitly describing it as an investment.
NB: Here too we see that he did not come up with the term “cryptocurrency” himself.
By July 2009, Satoshi was tired, saying he “needed a break” from Bitcoin. This also explains Hal's absence from work. He also mentions spending 18 months at that point developing Bitcoin.
Also on a weird note, Malmi asks if he has any ideas for applications people could use Bitcoin for.
Satoshi discusses how #Bitcoin You might get adopted. Of note is his assertion that Bitcoin was easy to obtain since you could mine it on a computer. He also goes on to hypothesize how the market trading landscape for Bitcoin will evolve, and discusses how skeptical people are about its value, noting that he is confident that increasing mining difficulty will prove its scarcity to people.
It's very different from how we think about Bitcoin (BTC) today in terms of obtaining it, but it shows insight into how people will mentally value it in the future.
In June 2010, someone offered to donate $2,000 to Satoshi for it #Bitcoin a job. It is worth noting that he had the donor send it to Marty's address. He also expressed his keenness to respect the donor's privacy.
Already known, but Satoshi was very adamant that early adopters take it into consideration #Bitcoin “Free” here discusses removing transaction fees from the early software user experience. Interestingly, his reasoning was aimed at hiding this feature from users, but at the same time he acknowledged its necessity in the distant future.
Satoshi worked on #Bitcoin On the birthday of Jesus Christ. There are some interesting implications here to consider regarding his personal life.
Satoshi saw #Bitcoin It is taking hold as a way to trade other online currencies such as Liberty Reserve. He also goes on to discuss the possibility of marketplaces selling gift cards for Bitcoin, which ended up becoming and remains to this day an important market for Bitcoin.
NB: Liberty Reserve was later closed by the United States.
Satoshi was given a mysterious leave of absence #Bitcoin In 2010. Here he talks about it with Marty, although he also lacks details.
It was Satoshi who removed the language saying Bitcoin is “anonymous” from http://Bitcoin.org. He was concerned that it made Bitcoin look “suspicious.” This reflects his later feelings about WikiLeaks' announcement that it would accept bitcoin for donations.
It is worth noting that given the historical revisionism on this matter, Satoshi highly regarded Gavin Andersen. Here he praises Gavin and refers to another person as an “idiot”.
We finally have a copy of the email Satoshi sent to other developers before his name was removed from the project website. As they said, Satoshi did not mention his intention to withdraw from the project at all.
Overall, no new substantive information was revealed, but the emails give a new angle to Satoshi's interactions with others involved in the project before his departure.
