The First Bitcoin Transaction Was Sent to Hal Finney 12 Years Ago

Today marks the twelfth anniversary of the first-ever Bitcoin transaction sent from one person to another. At the receiving end was computer scientist Hal Finney, who got the 10 Bitcoin from Satoshi Nakamoto, the network’s mysterious, pseudonymous creator.

The transaction on the now-historic date proved that Bitcoin—as a money network—did indeed work in reality and set the foundation for its future growth. It came a week after Nakamoto started running the Bitcoin network on their computing system.

Apart from receiving the first Bitcoin transaction, Finney, known for his work in advanced cryptography systems before succumbing to a rare disease in 2014, was also the second person to run Bitcoin. Some even conspire that he was Nakamoto—a theory that does the rounds even today.

“I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test,” Finney wrote in a Bitcointalk forum post in 2009. The amount was worth next to nothing at the time, but at today’s market prices, it is worth over $353,000.

Finney was also one of the first individuals to put out a price prediction on Bitcoin. He estimated in a mail (which was initially lost but later recovered) to Nakamoto in 2009 that extrapolated the total worldwide household wealth—considering it to be between $100-300 trillion—with Bitcoin’s 21 million supply: Giving each coin a value of $10 million.

And as if those firsts weren’t enough, Finney also holds the distinction of making the first-ever tweet referring to Bitcoin. It just said, “running bitcoin,” and twelve years on, the network’s still going strong.