It’s been exactly 13 years to the day since computer scientist Hal Finney became the recipient of the first transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain from creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
On Jan. 12, 2009, with the Bitcoin (BTC) white paper a mere three months old, Satoshi sent Finney 10 BTC — worth next to nothing at the time, but now roughly $440,000. The move, likely a test to determine the viability of the blockchain, was the first in a series of hundreds of millions of transactions in Bitcoin between millions of people across the world.
“When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away,” said Finney in a 2013 post on Bitcointalk.org. “I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run Bitcoin. 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. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.”
