Below are collections of publicly known and verified quotes from Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, and Hal Finney, one of Bitcoin's earliest contributors. These statements, made during their active involvement with Bitcoin (2008-2011 for Satoshi, 2009-2013 for Finney), are sourced from the Bitcoin whitepaper, BitcoinTalk forum, Cryptography Mailing List, Genesis Block, and other public posts. They reflect their thoughts on Bitcoin's purpose, design, and potential.
These quotes are drawn from Satoshi Nakamoto's and Hal Finney's public contributions during their active periods with Bitcoin (2008-2011 for Satoshi, 2009-2013 for Finney). Sources include the Bitcoin whitepaper, Genesis Block, Cryptography Mailing List, and BitcoinTalk forum posts. Private emails or unverified claims are excluded to ensure authenticity. Dates reflect when the statements were made public. Hal Finney, a key early Bitcoin developer, received the first Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi and contributed significantly to its early development.
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"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."
- Genesis Block message, January 3, 2009
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A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
- Bitcoin Whitepaper, October 31, 2008
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"I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party."
- Cryptography Mailing List, November 1, 2008
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"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, February 11, 2009
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"A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990's. I hope it's obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we're trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, February 15, 2009
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"Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, June 21, 2010
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"The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, June 17, 2010
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"It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, July 18, 2010
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"Being open source means anyone can independently review the code. If it was closed source, nobody could verify the security. I think it's essential for a program of this nature to be open source."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, July 25, 2010
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"In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for [mining] nodes. I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, February 14, 2010
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"The fact that new coins are produced means the money supply increases by a planned amount, but this does not necessarily result in inflation. If the supply of money increases at the same rate that the number of people using it increases, prices remain stable."
BitcoinTalk Forum, November 8, 2009
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"Bitcoin would be convenient for people who don't have a credit card or don't want to use the cards they have."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, August 20, 2010
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"Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, November 25, 2009
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"Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There's nothing to relate it to."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, July 5, 2010
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"If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, July 29, 2010
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"The utility of the exchanges made possible by Bitcoin will far exceed the cost of electricity used. Therefore, not having Bitcoin would be the net waste."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, December 10, 2010
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"It's very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I'm better with code than with words though."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, December 29, 2010
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"There's more work to do on DoS, but Im doing a quick build of what I have so far in case it's needed, before venturing into more complex ideas."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, December 12, 2010 (Satoshi's final public post)
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"Running bitcoin"
- Twitter (now X), January 10, 2009
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"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."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, March 19, 2013
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"Bitcoin seems to be a very promising idea. I like the idea of basing security on the assumption that the CPU power of honest participants outweighs that of the attacker. It is a very modern notion that exploits the power of the long tail."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, January 10, 2009
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"I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, December 29, 2010
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"Bitcoin itself cannot scale to have every single financial transaction in the world be broadcast to everyone and included in the block chain. There needs to be a secondary level of payment systems which is lighter weight and more efficient."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, December 29, 2010
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"Since we're all rich with bitcoins, or we will be once they're worth a million dollars like everyone expects, we ought to put some of this unearned wealth to good use."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, January 25, 2011
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"It's pretty strange really that we all see a good chance that bitcoins will hit a dollar in the relatively near future. How many investments can be expected to triple in value in that time frame?"
- BitcoinTalk Forum, January 25, 2011
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"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, March 19, 2013
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"As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all the wealth in the world."
- BitcoinTalk Forum, January 27, 2009
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