Admin: Created page with "{{#seo: |title= Hal Finney. All about cryptocurrency - zaoniaoWiki |keywords=Hal Finney, Harold Thomas Finney II, hal, harold, thomas, finney, second, the second, satoshi naka..."

2019-05-29T11:33:56Z

Created page with "{{#seo: |title= Hal Finney. All about cryptocurrency - zaoniaoWiki |keywords=Hal Finney, Harold Thomas Finney II, hal, harold, thomas, finney, second, the second, satoshi naka..."

New page

{{#seo:
|title= Hal Finney. All about cryptocurrency - zaoniaoWiki
|keywords=Hal Finney, Harold Thomas Finney II, hal, harold, thomas, finney, second, the second, satoshi nakamoto, GPP corporation, recipient, first, bitcoin transaction
|description=Harold Thomas Finney (May 4, 1956 – August 28, 2014) was a developer for PGP Corporation and recipient of the first bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto. Hal Finney was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in August 2009.
}}

'''Harold Thomas Finney II''' (May 4, 1956 – August 28, 2014) was a developer for [[PGP Corporation]], and was the second developer hired after [[Phil Zimmermann]]. In his early career, he was credited as lead developer on several console games. He also was an early [[bitcoin]] user and received the first bitcoin transaction from bitcoin's creator [[Satoshi Nakamoto]].

== Early life and education ==
Finney was born in [[Coalinga, California]], in 1956. He went on to attend the [[California Institute of Technology]], graduating with a BS in engineering in 1981.

== Career ==
After graduation from Caltech, he went to work in the computer gaming field for a company that developed video games such as ''[[Adventures of Tron]]'', ''[[Armor Ambush]]'', ''[[Astrosmash|Astroblast]]'' and ''Space Attack''. He later went to work for the [[PGP Corporation]] with whom he remained until his retirement in 2011. During the early 1990s, in addition to being a regular poster on the [[cypherpunk]]s listserv, Finney ran two [[anonymous remailers]]. Further cryptographic activism included running a (successful) contest to break the [[Export of cryptography in the United States#PC era|export-grade encryption]] [[Netscape]] used.

In 2004, Finney created the first [[Proof-of-work system|reusable proof of work system]] before [[bitcoin]]. In January 2009, Finney was the bitcoin network's first transaction recipient.

==Bitcoin==
Finney was a [[cypherpunk]] and said:

He was an early [[bitcoin]] user and received the first bitcoin transaction from bitcoin's creator [[Satoshi Nakamoto]]. Finney lived in the same town for 10 years that [[Satoshi_Nakamoto#Dorian_Nakamoto|Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto]] lived, adding to speculation that he may have been Bitcoin's creator. Finney denied that he was [[Satoshi Nakamoto]].

In March 2013, Finney posted on a bitcoin forum BitcoinTalk that he was essentially paralyzed, but continued to program. He continued to program until his death; he was working on experimental software called bcflick, which uses [[Trusted Computing]] to strengthen bitcoin wallets.

During the last year of his life, the Finneys received anonymous calls demanding an extortion fee of 1,000 bitcoin. They became victims of [[swatting]] — a hoax "where the perpetrator calls up emergency dispatch using a spoofed telephone number and pretends to have committed a heinous crime in the hopes of provoking an armed police response to the victim’s home".

==Private life, illness==
In October 2009, Finney announced in an essay on the blog ''[[Less Wrong]]'' that he had been diagnosed with [[amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]] (ALS) in August 2009. Prior to his illness, Finney had been an active runner. Finney and his wife Fran Finney raised money for ALS research with the [[Santa Barbara International Marathon]].

== Death ==

Hal Finney was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in August 2009. His bitcoins (which he mined in early 2009) were spent on medical bills as his ALS progressed in 2013. He made arrangements with Alcor Life Extension Foundation to be cryopreserved upon being declared legally dead.

Hal Finney died in Phoenix August 28, 2014 and was [[Cryonics|cryopreserved]] by the [[Alcor Life Extension Foundation]].

==Source==

[http://wikipedia.org/ http://wikipedia.org/]
==See Also on BitcoinWiki==
* [[Mixercoin]]
* [[Silent]]
* [[Avalon721]]
* [[DATx]]
* [[Helbiz]]

Hal Finney - Revision history

Admin: Created page with "{{#seo: |title= Hal Finney. All about cryptocurrency - zaoniaoWiki |keywords=Hal Finney, Harold Thomas Finney II, hal, harold, thomas, finney, second, the second, satoshi naka..."