Satoshi’s Last Words – Bitcoin Founder Disappears 13 Years Ago, Today

Satoshi Nakamoto is about as mysterious as you can get. The anonymous developer(s) is credited with founding Bitcoin in 2009 – and that’s about all we know of them. Apart from the occasional message board post, Nakamoto was notoriously elusive, rarely making a public statement. To this day, the identity of the enigmatic Satoshi is yet to be revealed. 

In essence, Nakamoto turned up, invented blockchain technology, shook up the entire financial system as we know it, didn’t elaborate and left.

BitcoinTalk Post Nakamoto’s Not-So-Famous Last Words

It seems a bit melancholy to discuss Satoshi Nakamoto’s last words as though they’ve passed on. But, in reality, their 13 years of silence have only made their statements resonate even louder. 

Unfortunately for those with a propensity for theatre, Nakamoto’s “last words” weren’t as cool as “Et tu, Brute”. Even posting something as cringeworthy as “See ya on the next block” may have satisfied the dramatic side of things. No, the last shred of public evidence that Satoshi even existed is a fairly milquetoast update intending to improve Bitcoin’s defence against a DoS attack. 

Re-writing the whole thing would be a little pointless, and those without any coding experience may even find it boring. But the very last sentence of Nakamoto’s post on BitcoinTalk, 13 years ago today, reads:

Safe mode can still be triggered by seeing a longer (greater total PoW) invalid blockchain.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Perhaps the craziest part about reflecting on Nakamoto’s last words isn’t the mystery around the developer. It’s about Bitcoin’s incredible growth and the broader crypto industry has demonstrated since then.

At the time of Nakamoto’s BitcoinTalk post, BTC was trading for $0.10 and had only been mentioned by six publications in the entire world. Consider what the crypto world looks like now – it has a trillion-dollar market cap and thousands of YouTube channels, websites and segments dedicated to its discussion.

But the gradual growth of Bitcoin wasn’t an accident. It was all part of Nakamoto’s genius plan to slowly introduce the concept of decentralised currency to the world so that, by the time it became mainstream, many of its potential problems would already have solutions.

The phrase “Satoshi Nakamoto’s last words” makes it sound like they have passed away. But the mystery of the past 13 years, the success of the crypto industry and the power their name still holds among the community shows that Satoshi Nakamoto is more alive than ever.