Read Adam Back's Complete Emails with Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto

February 23, 2024

The full email correspondence between Hashcash inventor Adam Back and Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is now public after being entered into the official court records in the U.K. this week.

Detailed in the five emails below is the complete conversation between Nakamoto and Back, who was cited in the seminal Bitcoin white paper. In the emails, the two cryptography heavyweights can be seen for the first time discussing the work.

Though Back has previously spoken publicly about the emails, hinting at the details of the conversation, and in particular how he neglected to read the white paper at first, the emails represent the first time that the full text has been made available.

Adam Back, a renowned figure in the cryptocurrency world, and the chief executive of Blockstream, has long been speculated to have been involved in the creation of Bitcoin, though these emails will likely weaken such suspicions.

As detailed, the correspondence between the two was polite and professional, with Back pointing Satoshi to a few related papers, and Satoshi seeking to make clear the unique contributions he added to Back’s prior work.

Invented in the 1990s by Back, Hashcash was a method for slowing email spam, one that prompted a computer’s processor to prove it had conducted calculations before delivering the message. The system is the blueprint for Bitcoin’s mining system, in which a distributed network of computers compete to solve cryptographic puzzles, and in exchange for the work, release new bitcoins into the economy.

Elsewhere, it’s now clear Satoshi tried to keep in touch with Back, emailing him in January 2009 on release of the Bitcoin software.

Since their publication this week, the release of these emails has reignited interest surrounding the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, as it coincides with other new emails presented by Satoshi’s early collaborators.

While an interesting relic of history, however, these emails do little to shed light on Bitcoin’s essential mysteries.