He then threatened to reveal THE TRUE IDENTITY of Satoshi Nakamoto, in exchange for a ransom.
Discover the incredible story of the hack that could have destroyed Bitcoin forever...
In 2008, a certain Satoshi Nakamoto published a whitepaper entitled: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".
A few months later, he launched the software, mined the first blocks and traded with the project's pioneers.
And then... he disappeared.
In April 2011, Satoshi sends his very last known email, indicating that he's "moving on". He left the code in the hands of trusted developers.
And since then, nothing. Not a word. Not a transaction. Not a proof of life.
The BTC mined by Satoshi (around 1.1 million BTC) are still sitting in frozen wallets, which have never shown any movement.
The only thing left?
A few messages on forums... and an email address used at the time:
📧 [email protected]
It's one of the few things we know: Satoshi used a public email address in his early days, notably on forums and in his technical exchanges.
It was used between 2009 and 2011 to correspond with developers like Gavin Andresen, Mike Hearn and Hal Finney.
Today, it's inactive, but after Satoshi's disappearance, it became a digital relic.
A time capsule. A myth.
And, for some... a potential key to her identity.
But on September 8, 2014, someone allegedly managed to take control of this email.
An administrator on the Bitcointalk forum, known by the pseudonym Theymos, noticed something strange.
He receives an email from [email protected].
The contents are puzzling:
"Michael, send me some corners before I hit you."
It's a threatening message, obviously with no head or tail. But it's signed with Satoshi's address.
He's spread the word on the forum that Satoshi's email account may have been hacked.
The news spread like wildfire on Reddit, Bitcointalk and Twitter.
A signed message from the [email protected] account appears online, posted from Pastebin:
"I am not Satoshi. But this email account was hacked using an exploit in GMX. I have proof."
The hacker claims to have gained full access to the messaging system. He promises to publish private conversations, reveal secrets about the creation of Bitcoin... even sell Satoshi's real identity to the highest bidder.
Shortly afterwards, several influential members of the community confirm that they have received strange emails, obviously sent from Satoshi's original address.
Fragments of old private conversations appear, notably between Satoshi and core team developers.
This is no ordinary hoax. This is serious stuff.
Developers from the time, such as Greg Maxwell and Jeff Garzik, say the content seems authentic.
And the timing of some of the exchanges corresponds perfectly to what they experienced.
But the hacker(s) want money for the information.
They post an advert on an underground site, offering :
Satoshi Nakamoto's real identity, for sale to the highest bidder.
Price: 25 bitcoins. (About €12,000 at the time).
They claim to have access to other emails linked to the GMX account, metadata, personal clues.
They also promise to send targeted emails, under the name Satoshi, to sow doubt or harm.
A message addressed directly to the real Satoshi states that his "passwords and IP addresses are doxed and sold on the darknet, so his location may be known to hackers".
The sender of this message urges Satoshi to flee his current location. "You are not safe. You need to get out of where you are as soon as possible before these people harm you. Thank you for inventing Bitcoin."
From then on, the community was on the alert. The administrators of Bitcointalk (the historic forum of the crypto community) took immediate action:
- They deactivate the "Satoshi" account on the forum.
- They issue a warning: "Any message posted from the address [email protected] should be considered compromised."
Gavin Andresen, one of the last people to speak directly to Satoshi, publishes a post explaining why this hack is serious:
"If someone can send messages from Satoshi's address, they can influence markets, mislead developers or damage Bitcoin's reputation."
But how was Satoshi's e-mail hacked?
The main theory as to how the hacker gained access to Satoshi's GMX account was that a password reset was performed.
Apparently, the password reset question lost on Satoshi's GMX account was the date of birth.
The hacker could therefore have guessed the date of birth.
It was possible to resubmit every 8 hours, so the hacker could have been trying to access the account for some time and only gained access by guessing the correct birthday on September 8, 2014.
The date of birth on Satoshi's GMX profile could also match the date shown on Satoshi's P2P Foundation profile.
The P2P Foundation forum displays an age for each member calculated from the date of birth entered.
Therefore, Satoshi's apparent birthday can easily be determined from this information.
Satoshi's actual birthday would be April 5, 1975.
Satoshi Nakamoto's identity revealed?
Leaks from the email database appear, including a screenshot of a hardware order sent to a name and address in the USA.
The proof everyone was waiting for!
But no... It proves nothing, because someone may have used Satoshi's e-mail address on the order form, without having access to the e-mail address, and this order probably has nothing to do with Satoshi.
This quickly proves to be a false lead.
No one will ever know who was behind this hack and what Satoshi Nakamoto's email really contained.
Even though several people finally gained access to the e-mails after the hacker, they revealed almost nothing but unread spam.
So nothing really interesting, or at least nothing that could reveal Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity.
Some people think he was an opportunistic hacker, taking advantage of a flaw in the GMX servers (a German e-mail service).
Others suggest an intelligence operation or state-sponsored cyber-intrusion.
No group has been formally identified.
No transaction proving the sale of Satoshi's identity has taken place.
And since then, there has been complete silence.
What could have been the revelation that would have destroyed Bitcoin forever, has been forgotten...
Thank you for taking the time to read this long note, perhaps the longest on Nostr. I'll put some captures in comments.
