Forensic Findings: Hal Finney Didn't Actually Catch Bitcoin's Launch

I always thought Hal Finney was the second person to use Bitcoin after Satoshi, like most people. But then I realized I had never come across solid proof of this. I dug around and couldn’t find any thorough write-up besides the private emails between Hal and Satoshi that Hal shared later. So, I collected every piece of evidence I could find from around the Bitcoin launch: - Private emails between Hal and Satoshi - Hal's node debug.log file from when he first started Bitcoin - The this forum post where Hal talked about his early involvement - Screenshots of Hal's wallet that he made public - Private emails between Dustin Trammell and Satoshi - extraNonce values found in the blockchain As I went through all of this, it struck me that no one had really analyzed these early events closely. After carefully examining all these materials, I pieced things together and here’s what I found: - Hal Finney actually wasn’t there for Bitcoin's launch - Satoshi was operating two nodes when Hal joined (one of them behind Tor) - The Bitcoin network faced 8 halts in the first 170 blocks But what’s even more important than these findings is the clear picture they give of what it was really like to use Bitcoin in those initial days. Without Hal Finney and Dustin Trammell, Bitcoin could have easily failed and faded into obscurity. Check out the full investigation here: https://1stbitcoinminer.com/ where I explain the methods I used and provide proper sources. And if you prefer a quick video summary, here it is: https://x.com/raw_avocado/status/2069786136998785412