In 2009, Martti Malmi, then a second-year undergraduate student at Helsinki University of Technology, stumbled upon bitcoin.org. He sent an email to Satoshi Nakamoto saying, “I would like to help with Bitcoin, if there’s something I can do.”

Admittedly, this was a rather informal application. But from that moment, the wheels of fate began to turn. Martti Malmi became Satoshi’s first collaborator, the person Satoshi trusted most, and Bitcoin changed his life forever. In the crypto community, there are always stories of students going “All in” and getting rich, and Martti is undoubtedly the progenitor of such legends.

Last month, he publicly shared his email history with Satoshi (https://mmalmi.github.io/satoshi/), allowing us to revisit Bitcoin’s magnificent history from new perspectives. Here are some interesting findings from OneKey.

Bitcoin’s Early Operations Resembled a Startup

Much like most startups of the time, they secured the “bitcoin.org” domain name and engaged in extensive discussions about product features, UI (user interface), website, and more.

Unlike the typical startup environment of the era, all work was communicated via email, and no one had ever met the “boss” Satoshi. Nowadays, remote work is widespread in the crypto industry, with major crypto companies like Binance, Paradigm, and OneKey adopting various degrees of global collaboration.

Satoshi’s first remote work assignment for college student Martti Malmi was an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) task. Satoshi mentioned that the website currently needed some writing content, and he was “not good at writing, more skilled at coding.” The original translation was: “You might consider setting up a website on SourceForge, as there’s currently no content there. If you could prepare an FAQ, I can compile my previous responses from emails and forums to provide you with the necessary information and inspiration.”

Satoshi Nakamoto clearly demonstrated good leadership by thoughtfully considering suggestions from a young university student, Martti. In this instance, Satoshi acted like a product manager, discussing features for the Bitcoin Core client such as “minimizing to the system tray” and “auto-start on boot.” Similar to many software programs at the time, the goal was to compete for user engagement and reduce “user churn.” Of course, Bitcoin’s adoption of this “trick” was to encourage more people to run full nodes, thereby enhancing the security of the early network. Here’s the original translation:

“Next, I plan to add a feature that allows the Bitcoin program to run automatically on startup in Windows and minimize to the system tray. This should significantly increase the number of online nodes. Looking back, you indeed pointed out a critical missing feature that has the potential to greatly increase node numbers. Without auto-start, it would be hard to retain users after their initial try. Just like the early successful file-sharing networks, making the program auto-run and hide in the system tray by default is crucial. Although in our first version (v0.1.0), due to stability concerns, it didn’t seem appropriate to introduce this feature, now that the program has become stable enough, this feature must be added in our next version to ensure that users who are willing to try the new version have a better experience and are more likely to continue using it.”

As an “entrepreneur,” Satoshi couldn’t help but complain to Martti about those “hyped-up” internet projects that didn’t even have code yet.

In the following email, Satoshi expressed that SourceForge’s features were no longer sufficient for the Bitcoin forum and that a new forum service provider was needed. He also griped: “I’ve seen some projects that attract a lot of attention just from discussions and plans on the forum, even though they haven’t started writing any code. Forum discussions provide a platform for project exposure, attract new users, help solve support issues, and identify the most needed features. (So, this forum is important.)”

When it came to marketing the startup, Satoshi wasn’t entirely an extreme “geek” purist. He mentioned in this email that the term “anonymous” on the official website seemed a bit too suspicious and suggested that it could be something people understand privately without needing to broadcast it.

Original translation: “The term ‘anonymous’ sounds a bit suspicious. I think those who want anonymity can figure it out themselves without us making a big deal out of it. I made some changes to the homepage of bitcoin.org. Updating the translation isn’t really urgent. I tend to continue editing and tweaking it for a while, so if they want to update, it’s better to wait.”

Ultimately, Martti Took on Everything

In email communications, Satoshi Nakamoto repeatedly expressed his desire not to become a public figure (although most people ultimately remember Satoshi). He encouraged Martti to use his real name and address, requesting Martti to use his own credit card/ID to set up servers and bank accounts.

If you were Martti, would you be scared into “running away”?

Original translation: “I received a donation request for $2000. However, I need your mailing address to send it. Yes, the donor wishes to remain anonymous, so please protect the privacy of the envelope’s origin.”

In some Bitcoin promotion materials, Satoshi also had Martti speak on his behalf, while reminding him of some marketing risks. Original translation:

“On the SourceForge website, you can express many views that I cannot say on my own site. However, I feel that explicitly presenting Bitcoin as an ‘investment’ is somewhat inappropriate. This approach is quite risky, and you should remove this point. It’s fine if users come to this conclusion themselves, but we cannot use it as a selling point in our promotion.”

Assigning interview tasks to the newcomer Martti didn’t seem inappropriate either. Original translation: “A blogger wants to write an article about Bitcoin, but I currently don’t have the time to answer his questions. If I introduce him to you, would you be willing to answer his questions? This way, we might gain a valuable link resource.”

When boss Satoshi suddenly disappeared for a month, Martti still took on the forum operations. Original translation: “I’ve also been busy with other matters for the past month and a half. I just started downloading my emails from early April. I’ve handled most things and should be back to working on Bitcoin soon. It’s great to see you handling some things in my absence. Congratulations on completing your first Bitcoin transaction!”

Martti’s Faith Recharge

Satoshi Nakamoto also foresaw that if Bitcoin entered the mainstream, it would inevitably consume a large amount of energy. This might have been a very “explosive” viewpoint at the time: the banking system wastes more resources than PoW (Proof of Work).

“If we ultimately have to choose between economic freedom and conserving resources, it would be highly ironic.

Unfortunately, Proof of Work is the only solution I found that allows a peer-to-peer electronic cash system to operate without a trusted third party. Even if I didn’t use it as an auxiliary way to distribute the currency initially, Proof of Work remains crucial for coordinating the network and preventing double-spending.

If it does end up consuming a lot of energy, I believe that such energy consumption is still less than the labor and resource consumption of the traditional banking activities it is intended to replace. Its costs will be much lower than bank fees, which amount to billions of dollars, used to pay for all the brick-and-mortar buildings, skyscrapers, and useless credit card promotional mail.”

The Last Email

We all know that on December 12, 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto posted on the Bitcoin forum for the last time, discussing the DoS (Denial of Service) attacks, and then stopped participating in the forum. However, this was not Satoshi’s last email.

A month later, in this email sent to Gavin Andresen (with a copy to Martti), Satoshi once again confirmed that he did not want to participate in any media PR activities or interviews. Here, we can see that Satoshi was very concerned that Bitcoin’s rapid growth would lead to unmet demands for various features and defense mechanisms against attacks. They were also worried about the public’s frenzy, as some unofficial Bitcoin spokespersons were overly hyping it, even claiming it would replace Paypal or even the Euro. They hoped that the media would emphasize that Bitcoin was still a cutting-edge test and not yet ready for large-scale application.

Another month passed, and Satoshi sent his last email to Martti, arranging some administrator passwords, and then disappeared. This farewell has lasted 13 years, and it is highly likely we will never see him again.

Satoshi’s disappearance is shrouded in legend, but in these emails, we see a more personal side of Satoshi. It seems that “God” is not so distant, as if he is right beside us, as if everyone could be Satoshi.

Martti’s story is not just an illusion. With a new bull market wave, how many more “student” legends will we witness?

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [OneKey]. All copyrights belong to the original author [OneKey]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
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